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DEAR ENEMY 


BY 

JEAN WEBSTER 


AUTHOR OF 

WHEN PATTY WENT TO COLLEGE, 
DADDY LONG-LEGS, Etc. 


ILLUSTRATED BY 

THE AUTHOR 



NEW YORK 

GROSSET & DUNLAP 

PUBLISHERS 


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6i - boSftb 


YZs 

Y394 

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Copyright, 1915, by 
Jean Webster 


Published, October, 1915 




r~ 






DEAR ENEMY 























* 


/ 




* 






















» 





DEAR ENEMY 

Stone Gate, Worcester, 
Massachusetts, 
December 27. 

Dear Judy: 

Your letter is here. I have read it twice, and with 
amazement. Do I understand that Jervis has given 
you, for a Christmas present, the making over of the 
John Grier Home into a model institution, and that 
you have chosen me to disburse the money ? Me — I, 
Sallie McBride, the head of an orphan-asylum! My 
poor people, have you lost your senses, or have you 
become addicted to the use of opium, and is this the 
raving of two fevered imaginations? I am exactly 
as well fitted to take care of one hundred children < 
as to become the curator of a zoo. 

And you offer as bait an interesting Scotch doctor? 
My dear Judy,— likewise my dear Jervis,— I see 
through you! I know exactly the kind of family con¬ 
ference that has been held about the Pendleton fire¬ 
side. 


3 


4 


DEAR ENEMY 


“ Is n’t it a pity that Sallie has n’t amounted to more 
since she left college? She ought to be doing some¬ 
thing useful instead of frittering her time away in the 
petty social life of Worcester. Also [Jervis speaks] 
she is getting interested in that confounded young Hal- 
lock, too good-looking and fascinating and erratic; I 
never did like politicians. We must deflect her mind 
with some uplifting and absorbing occupation until 
the danger is past. Ha! I have it! We will put 
her in charge of the John Grier Home.” 

Oh, I can hear him as clearly as if I were there! 
On the occasion of my last visit in your delectable 
household Jervis and I had a very solemn conversa¬ 
tion in regard to (i) marriage, (2) the low ideals of 
politicians, (3) the frivolous, useless lives that society 
women lead. 

Please tell your moral husband that I took his words 
deeply to heart, and that ever since my return to 
Worcester I have been spending one afternoon a week 
reading poetry with the inmates of the Female Inebri¬ 
ate Asylum. My life is not so purposeless as it ap¬ 
pears. 

Also let me assure you that the politician is not 
dangerously imminent; and that, anyway, he is a very 
desirable politician, even though his views on tariff 
and single tax and trade-unionism do not exactly coin¬ 
cide with Jervis’s. 

Your desire to dedicate my life to the public good 
is very sweet, but you should look at it from the asy- 


DEAR ENEMY, 


5 

lum’s point of view. Have you no pity for those 
poor defenseless little orphan children? 

I have, if you have n’t, and I respectfully decline the 
position which you offer. 

I shall be charmed, however, to accept your invita¬ 
tion to visit you in New York, though I must acknowl¬ 
edge that I am not very excited over the list of gaieties 
you have planned. 

Please substitute for the New York Orphanage and 
the Foundling Hospital a few theaters and operas and 
a dinner or so. I have two new evening gowns and a 
blue and gold coat with a white fur collar. 

I dash to pack them; so telegraph fast if you don’t 
wish to see me for myself alone, but only as a succes¬ 
sor to Mrs. Lippett. 

Yours as ever, 

Entirely frivolous, 

And intending to remain so, 

Sallie McBride. 

p.s. Your invitation is especially seasonable. A 
charming young politician named Gordon Hallock is 
to be in New York next week. I am sure you will 
like him when you know him better. 


6 


DEAR ENEMY 


p.s. 2. Sallie taking her afternoon walk as Judy 
would like to see her: 



SO sweet (ittfe boi/s'v/ $o CLZ9.Y (inle g'tvli 

o*> ~ /f N ^* «&<**» 

k 

kUUlJIJUl / \ W 11 JIIITITU 


I ask you again, have you both gone mad? 








The John Grier Home, 

February 15. 

Dear Judy: 

We arrived in a snow-storm at eleven last night, 
Singapore and Jane and I. It does not appear to be 
customary for superintendents of orphan-asylums to 
bring with them personal maids and Chinese chows. 
The night-watchman and house-keeper, who had waited 
up to receive me, were thrown into an awful flutter. 
They had never seen the like of Sing, and thought 
that I was introducing a wolf into the fold. I re¬ 
assured them as to his dogginess; and the watchman, 
after studying his black tongue, ventured a witticism. 
He wanted to know if I fed him on huckleberry 
pie. 

It was difficult to find accommodations for my 
family. Poor Sing was dragged off whimpering to 
a strange woodshed, and given a piece of burlap. Jane 
did not fare much better. There was not an extra bed 
in the building, barring a five-foot crib in the hospital 
room. She, as you know, approaches six. We tucked 
her in, and she spent the night folded up like a jack¬ 
knife. She has limped about to-day, looking like a 
7 


8 


DEAR ENEMY 


decrepit letter S, openly deploring this latest escapade 
on the part of her flighty mistress, and longing for 
the time when we shall come to our senses, and return 
to the parental fireside in Worcester. 

I know that she is going to spoil all my chances of 
being popular with the rest of the staff. Having her 
here is the silliest idea that was ever conceived; but 
you know my family. I fought their objections step 
by step, but they made their last stand on Jane. If I 
brought her along to see that I ate nourishing food and 
did n’t stay up all night, I might come — temporarily; 
but if I refused to bring her — oh, dear me, I am 
not sure that I was ever again to cross the threshold of 
Stone Gate! So here we are, and neither of us very 
welcome, I am afraid. 

I woke by a gong at six this morning, and lay for 
a time listening to the racket that twenty-five little 
girls made in the lavatory over my head. It appears 
that they do not get baths,— just face-washes,— but 
they make as much splashing as twenty-five puppies 
in a pool. I rose and dressed and explored a bit. 
You were wise in not having me come to look the place 
over before I engaged. 

While my little charges were at breakfast, it seemed' 
a happy time to introduce myself; so I sought the 
dining-room. Horror piled on horror — those bare 
drab walls and oil-cloth-covered tables with tin cups 
and plates and wooden benches, and, by way of deco¬ 
ration, that one illuminated text, “ The Lord Will Pro- 


DEAR ENEMY 


9 

vide ” ! The trustee who added that last touch must 
possess a grim sense of humor. 

Really, Judy, I never knew there was any spot in the 
world so entirely ugly; and when I saw those rows 
and rows of pale, listless, blue-uniformed children, the 
whole dismal business suddenly struck me with such 
a shock that I almost collapsed. It seemed like an 
unachievable goal for one person to bring sunshine 
to one hundred little faces when what they need is a 
mother apiece. 

I plunged into this thing lightly enough, partly be¬ 
cause you were too persuasive, and mostly, I honestly 
think, because that sdurrilous Gordon Hallock laughed 
so uproariously at the idea of my being able to manage 
an asylum. Between you all you hypnotized me. 
And then of course, after I began reading up on the sub¬ 
ject and visiting all those seventeen institutions, I got 
excited over orphans, and wanted to put my own ideas 
into practice. But now I’m aghast at finding myself 
here; it’s such a stupendous undertaking. The future 
health and happiness of a hundred human beings lie in 
my hands, to say nothing of their three or four hun¬ 
dred children and thousand grandchildren. The 
thing’s geometrically progressive. It’s awful. Who 
am I to undertake this job? Look, oh, look for an¬ 
other superintendent! 

Jane says dinner’s ready. Having eaten two of 
your institution meals, the thought of another does n’t 
excite me. 


10 


DEAR ENEMY 


Later. 

The staff had mutton hash and spinach, with tapioca 
pudding for dessert; what the children had I hate to 
consider. 

I started to tell you about my first official speech at 
breakfast this morning. It dealt with all the wonder¬ 
ful new changes that are to come to the John Grier 
Home through the generosity of Mr. Jervis Pendle¬ 
ton, the president of our board of trustees, and of Mrs. 
Pendleton, the dear “ Aunt Judy ” of every little boy 
and girl here. 

Please don’t object to my featuring the Pendleton 
family so prominently. I did it for political reasons. 
As the entire working-staff of the institution was 
present, I thought it a good opportunity to emphasize 
the fact that all of these upsetting innovations come 
straight from headquarters, and not out of my excit¬ 
able brain. 

The children stopped eating and stared. The con¬ 
spicuous color of my hair and the frivolous tilt of 
my nose are evidently new attributes in a superintend¬ 
ent. My colleagues also showed plainly that they 
consider me too young and too inexperienced to be, 
set in authority. I haven’t seen Jervis’s wonderful 
Scotch doctor yet, but I assure you that he will have to 
be very wonderful to make up for the rest of these 
people, especially the kindergarten teacher. Miss 
Snaith and I clashed early on the subject of fresh air; 


DEAR ENEMY 


ii 


but I intend to get rid of this dreadful institution 
smell, if I freeze every child into a little ice statue. 

This being a sunny, sparkling, snowy afternoon, I 
ordered that dungeon of a playroom closed and the 
children out of doors. 

“ She’s chasin’ us out,” I heard one small urchin 
grumbling as he struggled into a two-years-too-small 
overcoat. 

They simply stood about the yard, all humped in 
their clothes, waiting patiently to be allowed to come 
back in. No running or shouting or coasting or snow¬ 
balls. Think of it! These children don’t know how 
to play. 

Still later. 

I have already begun the congenial task of spending 
your money. I bought eleven hot-water bottles this 
afternoon (every one that the village drug store con¬ 
tained) likewise some woolen blankets and padded 
quilts. And the windows are wide open in the babies’ 
dormitory. Those poor little tots are going to enjoy 
the perfectly new sensation of being able to breathe at 
night. 

There are a million things I want to grumble about, 
but it’s half-past ten, and Jane says I must go to bed. 

Yours in command, 
Sallie McBride. 

p.s. Before turning in, I tiptoed through the corridor 


12 


DEAR ENEMY 


to make sure that all was right, and what do you think 
I found? Miss Snaith softly closing the windows in 
the babies’ dormitory! Just as soon as I can find 
a suitable position for her in an old ladies’ home, I am 
going to discharge that woman. 

Jane takes the pen from my hand. 


Good night. 


The John Grier Home, 

February 20. 

Dear Judy: 

Dr. Robin MacRae called this afternoon to make 
the acquaintance of the new superintendent. Please 
invite him to dinner upon the occasion of his next visit 
to New York, and see for yourself what your husband 
has done. Jervis grossly misrepresented the facts 
when he led me to believe that one of the chief advan¬ 
tages of my position would be the daily intercourse 
with a man of Dr. MacRae’s polish and brilliancy and 
scholarliness and charm. 

He is tall and thinnish, with sandy hair and cold 
gray eyes. During the hour he spent in my society 
(and I was very sprightly) no shadow of a smile so 
much as lightened the straight line of his mouth. Can 
a shadow lighten ? Maybe not; but, anyway, what is 
the matter with the man? Has he committed some 
remorseful crime, or is his taciturnity due merely to 
his natural Scotchness? He’s as companionable as 
a granite tombstone! 

Incidentally, our doctor didn’t like me any more 
than I liked him. He thinks I’m frivolous and incon¬ 
sequential, and totally unfitted for this position of 


14 


DEAR ENEMY: 


trust. I dare say Jervis has had z letter from him 
by now asking to have me removed. 

In the matter of conversation we didn’t hit it off 
in the least. He discussed broadly and philosophically 
the evils of institutional care for dependent children, 
while I lightly deplored the unbecoming coiffure that 
prevails among our girls. 

To prove my point, I had in Sadie Kate, my special 
errand orphan. Her hair is strained back as tightly 
as though it had been done with a monkey-wrench, 
and is braided behind into two wiry little pigtails. De¬ 
cidedly, orphans’ ears need to be softened. But Dr. 
Robin MacRae does n’t give a hang whether their ears 
are becoming or not; what he cares about is their 
stomachs. We also split upon the subject of red petti¬ 
coats. I don’t see how any little girl can preserve 
any self-respect when dressed in a red flannel petti¬ 
coat an irregular inch longer than her blue checked 
gingham dress; but he thinks that red petticoats are 
cheerful and warm and hygienic. I foresee a warlike 
reign for the new superintendent. 

In regard to the doctor, there is just one detail to be 
thankful for: he is almost as new as I am, and he 
cannot instruct me in the traditions of the asylum. 
I don’t believe I could have worked with the old doctor, 
who, judging from the specimens of his art that he 
left behind, knew as much about babies as a veterinary 
surgeon. 

In the matter of asylum etiquette, the entire staff 


DEAR ENEMY 


15 


has undertaken my education. Even the cook this 
morning told me firmly that the John Grier Home 
has corn-meal mush on Wednesday nights. 

Are you searching hard for another superintendent ? 
I ’ll stay until she comes, but please find her fast. 

Yours, 

With my mind made up, 
Sallie McBride. 


Sup’t’s Office, 

John Grier Home, 
a,,. . --February 27. 

Dear Gordon: 

Are you still insulted because I would n’t take yout- 
advice? Don’t you know that a reddish-haired person 
of Irish forebears, with a dash of Scotch, can’t be 
driven, but must be gently led? Had you been less 
obnoxiously insistent, I should have listened sweetly, 
and been saved. As it is, I frankly confess that I 
have spent the last five days in repenting our quarrel. 
You were right, and I was wrong, and, as you see, 
I handsomely acknowledge it. If I ever emerge from 
this present predicament, I shall in the future be guided 
(almost always) by your judgment. Could any 
woman make a more sweeping retraction than that? 

The romantic glamour which Judy cast over this 
orphan-asylum exists only in her poetic imagination. 
The place is awful. Words can’t tell you how dreary 
and dismal and smelly it is: long corridors, bare walls; 
blue-uniformed, dough-faced little inmates that have n’t 
the slightest resemblance to human children. And oh, 
the dreadful institution smell! A mingling of wet 
scrubbed floors, unaired rooms, and food for a hun¬ 
dred people always steaming on the stove. 

16 


DEAR ENEMY 


17 


The asylum not only has to be made over, but every 
child as well, and it’s too herculean a task for such a 
selfish, luxurious, and lazy person as Sallie McBride 
ever to have undertaken. I ’m resigning the very first 
moment that Judy can find a suitable successor; but 
that, I fear, will not be immediately. She has gone 
off South, leaving me stranded; and of course, after 
having promised, I can’t simply abandon her asylum. 
But in the meantime I assure you that I’m homesick. 

Write me a cheering letter, and send a flower to 
brighten my private drawing-room. I inherited it, 
furnished, from Mrs. Lippett. The wall is covered 
with a tapestry paper in brown and red; the furniture 
is electric-blue plush, except the center-table, which is 
gilt. Green predominates in the carpet. If you pre¬ 
sented some pink rosebuds, they would complete the 
color scheme. 

I really was obnoxious that last evening, but you 
are avenged. 

Remorsefully yours, 

Sallie McBride. 

p.s. You need n’t have been so grumpy about the 
Scotch doctor. The man is everything dour that the 
word “ Scotch ” implies. I detest him on sight, and 
he detests me. Oh, we ’re going to have a sweet time 
working together! 


U.S CAPITOL 




G-P I E R Hom 


Oh WillowVVoeisme 



Alack ■f’Well a day 
If I were only free 
Id hie me far awa^ 11 











The John Grier Home, 

February 22. 

My dear Gordon: 

Your vigorous and expensive message is here. I 
know that you have plenty of money, but that is no 
reason why you should waste it so frivolously. When 
you feel so bursting with talk that only a hundred- 
word telegram will relieve an explosion, at least turn 
it into a night lettergram. My orphans can use the 
money if you don’t need it. 

Also, my dear sir, please use a trifle of common 
sense. Of course I can’t chuck the asylum in the 
casual manner you suggest. It would n’t be fair to 
Judy and Jervis. If you will pardon the statement, 
they have been my friends for many more years than 
you, and I have no intention of letting them go hang. 
I came up here in a spirit of — well, say adventure, 
and I must see the iventure through. You would n’t 
like me if I were a short sport. This doesn’t mean, 
however, that I am sentencing myself for life; I am 
intending to resign just as soon as the opportunity 
comes. But really I ought to feel somewhat gratified 
that the Pendletons were willing to trust me with such 
a responsible post. Though you, my dear sir, do not 
suspect it, I possess considerable executive ability, and 
19 


20 


DEAR ENEMY 


more common sense than is visible on the surface. 
If I chose to put my whole soul into this enterprise, 
I could make the rippingest superintendent that any 
hi orphans ever had. 

I suppose you think that’s funny ? It ’s true. Judy 
and Jervis know it, and that’s why they asked me to 
come. So you see, when they have shown so much 
confidence in me, I can’t throw them over in quite the 
unceremonious fashion you suggest. So long as I 
am here, I am going to accomplish just as much as it 
is given one person to accomplish every twenty-four 
hours. I am going to turn the place over to my suc¬ 
cessor with things moving fast in the right direction. 

But in the meantime please don’t wash your hands 
of me under the belief that I’m too busy to be home¬ 
sick ; for I’m not. I wake up every morning and stare 
at Mrs. Lippett’s wall-paper in a sort of daze, feeling 
as though it’s some bad dream, and I’m not really 
here. What on earth was I thinking of to turn my 
back upon my nice cheerful own home and the good 
times that by rights are mine? I frequently agree 
with your opinion of my sanity. 

But why, may I ask, should you be making such a 
fuss? You wouldn’t be seeing me in any case. 
Worcester is quite as far from Washington as the 
John Grier Home. And I will add, for your further 
comfort, that whereas there is no man in the neigh¬ 
borhood of this asylum who admires red hair, in 
Worcester there are several. Therefore, most difficult 


DEAR ENEMY 


21 


of men, please be appeased. I did n’t come entirely to 
spite you. I wanted an adventure in life, and, oh 
dear! oh dear! I’m having it! 

Please write soon, and cheer me up. 

Yours in sackcloth, 


Sallie. 


The John Grier Home, 
February 24. 

Dear Judy: 

You tell Jervis that I am not hasty at forming judg¬ 
ments. I have a sweet, sunny, unsuspicious nature, 
and I like everybody, almost. But no one could like 
that Scotch doctor. He never smiles. 

He paid me another visit this afternoon. I invited 
him to accommodate himself in one of Mrs. Lippett’s 
electric-blue chairs, and then sat down opposite to 
enjoy the harmony. He was dressed in a mustard- 
colored homespun, with a dash of green and a glint 
of yellow in the weave, a “ heather mixture ” calcu¬ 
lated to add life to a dull Scotch moor. Purple socks 
and a red tie, with an amethyst pin, completed the 
picture. Clearly, your paragon of a doctor is not 
going to be of much assistance in pulling up the esthetic 
tone of this establishment. 

During the fifteen minutes of his call he succinctly 
outlined all the changes he wishes to see accomplished 
in this institution. He forsooth! And what, may I 
ask, are the duties of a superintendent? Is she merely 
a figurehead to take orders from the visiting physician? 

It’s up wi’ the bonnets o' McBride and MacRae! 

I am, 

Indignantly yours, 
Sallie. 


22 


The John Grier Home, 
Monday. 

Dear Dr. MacRae: 

I am sending this note by Sadie Kate, as it seems 
impossible to reach you by telephone. Is the person 
who calls herself Mrs. McGur-rk and hangs up in the 
middle of a sentence your housekeeper? If she an¬ 
swers the telephone often, I don’t see how your patients 
have any patience left. 

As you did not come this morning, per agreement, 
and the painters did come, I was fain to choose a 
cheerful corn color to be placed upon the walls of your 
new laboratory room. I trust there is nothing un¬ 
hygienic about corn color. 

Also, if you can spare a moment this afternoon, 
kindly motor yourself to Dr. Brice’s on Water Street 
and look at the dentist’s chair and appurtenances which 
are to be had at half-price. If all of the pleasant para¬ 
phernalia of his profession were here,— in a corner of 
your laboratory,— Dr. Brice could finish his 111 new 
patients with much more despatch than if we had 
to transport them separately to Water Street. Don’t 
you think that’s a useful idea? It came to me in the 
middle of the night, but as I never happened to buy a 
dentist’s chair before, I’d appreciate some professional 
advice. 

Yours truly, 

S. McBride. 

23 


The John Grier Home, 
March i. 


Dear Judy: 

Do stop sending me telegrams! 

Of course I know that you want to know everything 
that is happening, and I would send a daily bulletin, 
but I truly don’t find a minute. I am so tired when 
night comes that if it weren’t for Jane’s strict dis¬ 
cipline, I should go to bed with my clothes on. 

Later, when we slip a little more into routine, and I 
can be sure that my assistants are all running off their 
respective jobs, I shall be the regularest correspondent 
you ever had. 

It was five days ago, was n’t it, that I wrote ? 
Things have been happening in those five days. The 
MacRae and I have mapped out a plan of campaign, 
and are stirring up this place to its sluggish depths. 
I like him less and less, but we have declared a sort of 
working truce. And the man is a worker. I always 
thought I had sufficient energy myself, but when an 
improvement is to be introduced, I toil along panting in 
his wake. He is as stubborn and tenacious and bull- 
doggish as a Scotchman can be, but he does understand 


24 


DEAR ENEMY 


25 


babies; that is, he understands their physiological as¬ 
pects. Ele has n’t any more feeling for them person¬ 
ally than for so many frogs that he might happen to 
be dissecting. 

Do you remember Jervis’s holding forth one eve¬ 
ning for an hour or so about our doctor’s beautiful 
humanitarian ideals? C’est a rire! The man merely 
regards the J. G. H. as his own private laboratory, 
where he can try out scientific experiments with no 
loving parents to object. I should n’t be surprised any 
day to find him introducing scarlet fever cultures into 
the babies’ porridge in order to test a newly invented 
serum. 

Of the house staff, the only two who strike me 
as really efficient are the primary teacher and the fur¬ 
nace-man. You should see how the children run to 
meet Miss Matthews and beg for caresses, and how 
painstakingly polite they are to the other teachers. 
Children are quick to size up character. I shall be 
very embarrassed if they are too polite to me. 

Just as soon as I get my bearings a little, and know 
exactly what we need, I am going to accomplish some 
♦ wide-spread discharging. I should like to begin with 
Miss Snaith; but I discover that she is the niece of 
one of our most generous trustees, and is n’t exactly 
dischargeable. She’s a vague, chinless, pale-eyed crea¬ 
ture, who talks through her nose and breathes through 
her mouth. She can’t say anything decisively and 
then stop; her sentences all trail off into incoherent 


26 


DEAR ENEMY 


murmurings. Every time I see the woman I feel an 
almost uncontrollable desire to take her by the 
shoulders and shake some decision into her. And Miss 
Snaith is the one who has had entire supervision of 
the seventeen little tots aged from two to five! But, 
anyway, even if I can’t discharge her, I have reduced 
her to a subordinate position without her being aware 
of the fact. 

The doctor has found for me a charming girl who 
lives a few miles from here and comes in every day 
to manage the kindergarten. She has ‘big, gentle, 
brown eyes, like a cow’s, and motherly manners (she 
is just nineteen), and the babies love her. At the 
head of the nursery I have placed a jolly, comfortable 
middle-aged woman who has reared five of her own 
and has a hand with bairns. Our doctor also found 
her; you see, he is useful. She is technically under 
Miss Snaith, but is usurping dictatorship in a satis¬ 
factory fashion. I can now sleep at night without 
being afraid that my babies are being inefficiently mur¬ 
dered. 

You see, our reforms are getting started; and while 
I acquiesce with all the intelligence at my command to 
our doctor’s basic scientific upheavals, still, they some¬ 
times leave me cold. The problem that keeps churn¬ 
ing and churning in my mind is, How can I ever instil 
enough love and warmth and sunshine into those bleak 
little lives? And I am not sure that the doctor’s 
science will accomplish that. 


DEAR ENEMY 


27 


One of our most pressing intelligent needs just now 
is to get our records into coherent form. The books 
have been most outrageously unkept. Mrs. Lippett 
had a big black account-book into which she jumbled 
any facts that happened to drift her way as to the chil¬ 
dren’s family, their conduct, and their health; but for 
weeks at a time she did n’t trouble to make an entry. 
If any adopting family wants to know a child’s parent¬ 
age, half the time we can’t even tell where we got the 
child! 


“ Where did you come from, baby dear ? ” 

“ The blue sky opened, and I am here,” 

is an exact description of their arrival. 

We need a field worker to travel about the country 
and pick up all the hereditary statistics she can about 
our chicks. It will be an easy matter, as most of them 
have relatives. What do you think of Janet Ware 
for the job? You remember what a shark she was in 
economics; she simply battened on tables and charts 
and surveys. 

I have also to inform you that the John Grier Home 
is undergoing a very searching physical examination, 
and it is the shocking truth that out of the twenty- 
eight poor little rats so far examined only five are up 
to specification. And the five have not been here 
long. 

Do you remember the ugly green reception-room on 
the first floor? I have removed as much of its green- 


28 


DEAR ENEMY 


ness as possible, and fitted it up as the doctor's labora¬ 
tory. It contains scales and drugs and, most profes¬ 
sional touch of all, a dentist’s chair and one of those 
sweet grinding-machines. (Bought them second-hand 
from Doctor Brice in the village, who is putting in, for 
the gratification of his own patients, white enamel 
and nickel-plate.) That drilling-machine is looked 
upon as an infernal engine, and I as an infernal mon¬ 
ster for instituting it. But every little victim who is 
discharged filled may come to my room every day for 
a week and receive two pieces of chocolate. Though 
our children are not conspicuously brave, they are, we 
discover, fighters. Young Thomas Kehoe nearly bit 
the doctor’s thumb in two after kicking over a tableful 
of instruments. It requires physical strength as well 
as skill to be dental adviser to the J. G. H. 

Interrupted here to show a benevolent lady over 
the institution. She asked fifty irrelevant questions, 
took up an hour of my time, then finally wiped away 
a tear and left a dollar for my “ poor little charges.” 

So far, my poor little charges are not enthusiastic 
about these new reforms. They don’t care much for 
the sudden draft of fresh air that has blown in upon 
them, or the deluge of water. I am shoving in two 
baths a week, and as soon as we collect tubs enough 
and a few extra faucets, they are going to get 
seven. 

But at least I have started one most popular reform. 



SEVEN BATHS A WEEK!! 

Unprecedented Cruelty 
oft the pdrtof Orphan 
>4si|fuVn Super imte-nc/ent 












30 


DEAR ENEMY 


Our daily bill of fare has been increased, a change 
deplored by the cook as causing trouble, and deplored 
by the rest of the staff as causing an immoral increase 
in expense. ECONOMY spelt in capitals has been the 
guiding principle of this institution for so many years 
that it has become a religion. I assure my timid co¬ 
workers twenty times a day that, owing to the gener¬ 
osity of our president, the endowment has been exactly 
doubled, and that I have vast sums besides from Mrs. 
Pendleton for necessary purposes like ice-cream. But 
they simply can't get over the feeling that it is a wicked 
extravagance to feed these children. 

The doctor and I have been studying with care the 
menus of the past, and we are filled with amazement 
at the mind that could have devised them. Here is 
one of her frequently recurring dinners: 


Boiled potatoes 
Boiled rice 
Blanc mange 


It 9 s a wonder to me that the children are anything 
more than one hundred and eleven little lumps of 
starch. 

Looking about this institution, one is moved to mis¬ 
quote Robert Browning. 

“ There may be heaven; there must be hell; 

Meantime, there is the John Grier — well! ” 




'Dear Judy: 


The John Grier Home, 

Saturday. 


Dr. Robin MacRae and I fought another battle yes¬ 
terday over a very trivial matter (in which I was 
right), and since then I have adopted for our doctor a 
special pet name. “ Good morningj Enemy! ” was my 
greeting to-day, at which he was quite solemnly an¬ 
noyed. He says he does not wish to be regarded as 
an enemy. He is not in the least antagonistic — so 
long as I mold my policy upon his wishes! 

We have two new children, Isador Gutschneider and 
Max Yog, given to us by the Baptist Ladies’ Aid So¬ 
ciety. Where on earth do you suppose those children 
picked up such a religion ? I did n’t want to take them, 
but the poor ladies were very persuasive, and they pay 
the princely sum of four dollars and fifty cents per 



31 






































3 ^ 


DEAR ENEMY 


week per child. This makes 113, which makes us very 
crowded. I have half a dozen babies to give away. 
Find me some kind families who want to adopt. 

You know it’s very embarrassing not to be able 
to remember offhand how large your family is, but 
mine seems to vary from day to day, like the stock 
market. I should like to keep it at about par. When 
a woman has more than a hundred children, she can’t 
give them the individual attention they ought to have. 


Monday. 

This letter has been lying two days on my desk, and 
I haven’t found the time to stick on a stamp. But 
now I seem to have a free evening ahead, so I will 
add a page or two more before starting it on a pleasant 
journey to Florida. 

I am just beginning to pick out individual faces 
among the children; it seemed at first as though I 
could never learn them, they looked so hopelessly cut 
out of one pattern, with those unspeakably ugly uni¬ 
forms. Now please don’t write back that you want 
the children put into new clothes immediately. I know 
you do; you’ve already told me five times. In about 
a month I shall be ready to consider the question, but 
just now their insides are more important than their 
outsides. 

There is no doubt about it — orphans in the mass 
do not appeal to me. I am beginning to be afraid that 


DEAR ENEMY 


33 


this famous mother instinct which we hear so much 
about was left out of my character. Children as chil¬ 
dren are dirty, spitty little things, and their noses all 
need wiping. Here and there I pick out a naughty, mis¬ 
chievous little one that awakens a flicker of interest; 
but for the most part they are just a composite blur of 
white face and blue check. 

With one exception, though. Sadie Kate Kilcoyne 
emerged from the mass the first day, and bids fair 
to stay out for all time. She is my special little errand 
girl, and she furnishes me with all my daily amuse¬ 
ment. No piece of mischief has been launched in this 
institution for the last eight years that did not origi¬ 
nate in her abnormal brain. This young person has, 
to me, a most unusual history, though I understand 
it’s common enough in foundling circles. She was 
discovered eleven years ago on the bottom step of a 
Thirty-ninth Street house, asleep in a pasteboard box 
labeled, “ Altman & Co.’' 

“ Sadie Kate Kilcoyne, aged five weeks. Be kind 
to her,” was neatly printed on the cover. 

The policeman who picked her up took her to Belle¬ 
vue, where the foundlings are pronounced, in the order 
of their arrival, “ Catholic, Protestant, Catholic, 
Protestant/' with perfect impartiality. Our Sadie 
Kate, despite her name and blue Irish eyes, was made 
a Protestant. And here she is growing Irisher and 
Irisher every day, but, true to her christening, protest¬ 
ing loudly against every detail of life. 


34 


DEAR ENEMY 


Her two little black braids point in opposite direc¬ 
tions; her little monkey face is all screwed up with' 
mischief; she is as active as a terrier, and you have to 
keep her busy every moment. Her record of badnesses 
occupies pages in the Doomsday Book. The last item 
reads: 

“ For stumping Maggie Geer to get a door-knob 
into her mouth — punishment, the afternoon spent in 
bed, and crackers for supper.” 

It seems that Maggie Geer, fitted with a mouth of 
unusual stretching capacity, got the door-knob in, but 
could n’t get it out. The doctor was called, and can- 
nily solved the problem with a buttered shoe-horn.' 
“ Muckle-mouthed Meg,” he has dubbed the patient 
ever since. 

You can understand that my thoughts are anxiously 
occupied in filling every crevice of Sadie Kate’s 
existence. 

There are a million subjects that I ought to consult 
with the president about. I think it was very unkind 
of you and him to saddle me with your orphan-asylum 
and run off South to play. It would serve you right 
if I did everything wrong. While you are traveling 
about in private cars, and strolling in the moonlight on 
palm beaches, please think of me in the drizzle of a 
New York March, taking care of 113 babies that by 
rights are yours — and be grateful. 

I remain (for a limited time), 

S. McBride, 


Sup’t John Grier Home. 

Dear Enemy: 

I am sending herewith (under separate cover) 
Sammy Sgeir, who got mislaid when you paid your 
morning visit. Miss Snaith brought him to light after 
you had gone. Please scrutinize his thumb. I never 
saw a felon, but I have diagnosed it as such. 

Yours truly, 

S. McBride, 


35 


li 



Sup’t John Grier Home, 
March 6. 


Dear Judy: 


I don’t know yet whether the children are going to 
love me or not, but they do love my dog. No creature 
so popular as Singapore ever entered these gates. 
Every afternoon three boys who have been perfect in 
deportment are allowed to brush and comb him, while 
three other good boys may serve him with food and 
36 








DEAR ENEMY 


37 


drink. But every Saturday morning the climax of the 
week is reached, when three superlatively good boys 
give him a nice lathery bath with hot water and flea 
soap. The privilege of serving as Singapore’s valet 
is going to be the only incentive I shall need for main¬ 
taining discipline. 

But is n’t it pathetically unnatural for these young¬ 
sters to be living in the country and never owning a 
pet? Especially when they, of all children, do so need 
something to love. I am going to manage pets for 
them somehow, if I have to spend our new endowment 
for a menagerie. Could n’t you bring back some baby 
alligators and a pelican ? Anything alive will be grate¬ 
fully received. 

This should by rights be my first “ Trustees’ Day.” 

. I am deeply grateful to Jervis for arranging a simple 
business meeting in New York, as we are not yet on 
dress parade up here; but we are hoping by the first 
Wednesday in April to have something visible to show. 
If all of the doctor’s ideas, and a few of my own, get 
themselves materialized, our trustees will open their 
eyes a bit when we show them about. 

I have just made out a chart for next week’s meals, 
and posted it in the kitchen in the sight of an aggrieved 
cook. Variety is a word hitherto not found in the 
lexicon of the J. G. H. You would never dream all 
of the delightful surprises we are going to have: brown 
bread, corn pone, graham muffins, samp, rice pudding 
with lots of raisins, thick vegetable soup, macaroni 


38 


DEAR ENEMY 


Italian fashion, polenta cakes with molasses, apple- 
dumplings, ginger-bread — oh, an endless list! After 
our biggest girls have assisted in the manufacture of 
such appetizing dainties, they will almost be capable of 
keeping future husbands in love with them. 

Oh, dear me! Here I am babbling these silly 
nothings when I have some real news up my sleeve. 
,We have a new worker, a gem of a worker. 

Do you remember Betsy Kindred, 1910? She led 
the glee club and was president of dramatics. I re¬ 
member her perfectly; she always had lovely clothes. 
Well, if you please, she lives only twelve miles from 
here. I ran across her by chance yesterday morning 
as she was motoring through the village; or, rather, she 
just escaped running across me. 

I never spoke to her in my life, but we greeted each 
other like the oldest friends. It pays to have con¬ 
spicuous hair; she recognized me instantly. I hopped 
upon the running-board of her car and said: 

“ Betsy Kindred, 1910, you ’ve got to come back to 
my orphan-asylum and help me catalogue my or¬ 
phans.’’ 

And it astonished her so that she came. She’s to 
be here four or five days a week as temporary secre¬ 
tary, and somehow I must manage to keep her per¬ 
manently. She’s the most useful person I ever saw. 
I am hoping that orphans will become such a habit 
with her that she won’t be able to give them up. I 
think she might stay if we pay her a big enough salary. 


DEAR ENEMY 


39 

She likes to be independent of her family, as do all 
of us in these degenerate times. 

In my growing zeal for cataloguing people, I should 
like to get our doctor tabulated. If Jervis knows any 
gossip about him, write it to me, please; the worse, 
the better. He called yesterday to lance a felon on 
Sammy Speir’s thumb, then ascended to my electric- 
blue parlor to give instructions as to the dressing of 
thumbs. The duties of a superintendent are manifold. 

It was just tea-time, so I casually asked him to stay, 
and he did! Not for the pleasure of my society,— 
no, indeed,— but because Jane appeared at the moment 
with a plate of toasted muffins. He had n’t had any 
luncheon, it seems, and dinner was a long way ahead. 
Between muffins (he ate the whole plateful) he saw fit 
to interrogate me as to my preparedness for this posi¬ 
tion. Had I studied biology in college? How far 
had I gone in chemistry? What did I know of sociol¬ 
ogy? Had I visited that model institution at Has¬ 
tings ? 

To all of which I responded affably and openly. 
Then I permitted myself a question or two: just what 
sort of youthful training had been required to produce 
such a model of logic, accuracy, dignity, and common 
sense as I saw sitting before me ? Through persistent 
prodding I elicited a few forlorn facts, but all quite 
respectable. You’d think, from his reticence, there’d 
been a hanging in the family. The MacRae pere was 
born in Scotland, and came to the States to occupy a 


40 


DEAR ENEMY 


chair at Johns Hopkins; son Robin was shipped back 
to Auld Reekie for his education. His grandmother 
was a M’Lachlan of Strathlachan (I am sure she 
sounds respectable), and his vacations were spent in 
the Hielands a-chasing the deer. 

So much could I gather; so much, and no more. Tell 
me, I beg, some gossip about my enemy — something 
scandalous by preference. 

Why, if he is such an awfully efficient person does 
he bury himself in this remote locality? You would 
think an up-and-coming scientific man would want a 
hospital at one elbow and a morgue at the other. Are 
you sure that he did n’t commit a crime and is n’t hid¬ 
ing from the law ? 

I seem to have covered a lot of paper without tell¬ 
ing you much. Vive la bagatelle! 

Yours as usual, 

Sallie. 


p.s. I am relieved on one point. Dr. MacRae 
does not pick out his own clothes. He leaves all such 
unessential trifles to his housekeeper, Mrs. Maggie 
McGurk. 


Again, and irrevocably, good-by! 




Dear Gordon: 


The John Grier Home, 

Wednesday. 


Your roses and your letter cheered me for an entire 
morning, and it’s the first time I ’ve approached cheer¬ 
fulness since the fourteenth of February, when I waved 
good-by to Worcester. 

Words can’t tell you how monotonously oppressive 
the daily round of institution life gets to be. The only 
glimmer in the whole dull affair is the fact that Betsy 
Kindred spends four days a week with us. Betsy 
and I were in college together, and we do occasionally 
find something funny to laugh about. 

Yesterday we were having tea in my hideous parlor 
when we suddenly determined to revolt against so much 
unnecessary ugliness. We called in six sturdy and de¬ 
structive orphans, a step-ladder, and a bucket of hot 
water, and in two hours had every vestige of that tapes¬ 
try paper off those walls. You can’t imagine what 
fun it is ripping paper off walls. 

Two paper-hangers are at work this moment hang¬ 
ing the best that our village affords, while a German 
upholsterer is on his knees measuring my chairs for 
chintz slip-covers that will hide every inch of their 
plush upholstery. 


41 


42 


DEAR ENEMY 


Please don’t get nervous. This does n’t mean that 
I’m preparing to spend my life in the asylum. It 
means only that I’m preparing a cheerful welcome for 
my successor. I haven’t dared tell Judy how dismal 
I find it, because I don’t want to cloud Florida; but 
when she returns to New York she will find my official 
resignation waiting to meet her in the front hall. 

I would write you a long letter in grateful payment 
for seven pages, but two of my little dears are holding 
a fight under the window. I dash to separate them. 

Yours as ever, 

S. McB. 





My dear Judy: 


The John Grier Home, 

March 8. 


I myself have bestowed a little present upon the John 
Grier Home — the refurnishing of the superintendent’s 
private parlor. I saw the first night here that neither 
I nor any future occupant could be happy with Mrs. 
Lippett’s electric plush. You see, I am planning to 
make my successor contented and willing to stay. 

Betsy Kindred assisted in the rehabilitation of the 
Lippett’s chamber of horrors, and between us we have 
created a symphony in dull blue and gold. Really and 
truly, it ’s one of the loveliest rooms you Ve ever seen; 
the sight of it will be an artistic education to any 
orphan. New paper on the wall, new rugs on the floor 
(my own prized Persians expressed from Worcester 
by an expostulating family). New casement curtains 
at my three windows, revealing a wide and charming 
view, hitherto hidden by Nottingham lace. A new big 
table, some lamps and books and a picture or so, and 
a real open fire. She had closed the fireplace because 
it let in air. 

I never realized what a difference artistic surround¬ 
ings make in the peace of one’s soul. I sat last night 
43 


44 


DEAR ENEMY 


and watched my fire throw nice high lights on my new 
old fender, and purred with contentment. And I as¬ 
sure you it’s the first purr that has come from this cat 
since she entered the gates of the John Grier Home. 

But the refurnishing of the superintendent’s parlor 
is the slightest of our needs. The children’s private 
apartments demand so much basic attention that I 
can’t decide where to begin. That dark north play¬ 
room is a shocking scandal, but no more shocking 
than our hideous dining-room or our unventilated dor¬ 
mitories or our tubless lavatories. 

If the institution is very saving, do you think it 
can ever afford to burn down this smelly old original 
building, and put up instead some nice, ventilated mod¬ 
ern cottages? I cannot contemplate that wonderful 
institution at Hastings without being filled with envy. 
It would be some fun to run an asylum if you had a 
plant like that to work with. But, anyway, when you 
get back to New York and are ready to consult the 
architect about remodeling, please apply to me for 
suggestions. Among other little details I want two 
hundred feet of sleeping-porch running along the out¬ 
side of our dormitories. 

You see, it’s this way: our physical examination 
reveals the fact that about half of our children are 
sCnemic — aneamic — anaemic ( Mercy! what a word!), 
and a lot of them have tubercular ancestors, and more 
have alcoholic. Their first need is oxygen rather than 
education. And if the sickly ones need it, why 


DEAR ENEMY 


45 


would n’t it be good for the well ones? I should like 
to have every child, winter and summer, sleeping in 
the open air; but I know that if I let fall such a bomb 
on the board of trustees, the whole body would ex¬ 
plode. 

Speaking of trustees, I have met up with the Hon. 
Cyrus Wykoff, and I really believe that I dislike him 
more than Dr. Robin MacRae or the kindergarten 
teacher or the cook. I seem to have a genius for dis¬ 
covering enemies! 

Mr. Wykoff called on Wednesday last to look over 
the new superintendent. 

Having lowered himself into my most comfortable 
arm-chair, he proceeded to spend the day. He asked 
my father’s business, ancj whether or not he was well- 
to-do. I told him that my father manufactured over¬ 
alls, and that, even in these hard times, the demand for 
overalls was pretty steady. 

He seemed relieved; he approves of the utilitarian 
aspect of overalls. He had been afraid that I had 
come from the family of a minister or professor or 
writer, a lot of high thinking and no common sense. 
Cyrus believes in common sense. 

And what had been my training for this position ? 

That, as you know, is a slightly embarrassing ques¬ 
tion. But I produced my college education and a few 
lectures at the School of Philanthropy, also a short 
residence in the college settlement (I didn’t tell him 
that all I had done there was to paint the back hall 


46 


DEAR ENEMY 


and stairs). Then I submitted some social work 
among my father’s employees and a few friendly visits 
to the Home for Female Inebriates. 

To all of which he grunted. 

I added that I had lately made a study of the care 
of dependent children, and casually mentioned my 
seventeen institutions. 

He grunted again, and said he didn’t take much 
stock in this new-fangled scientific charity. 

At this point Jane entered with a box of roses from 
the florist’s. That blessed Gordon Hallock sends me 
roses twice a week to brighten the rigors of institu¬ 
tion life. 

Our trustee began an indignant investigation. He 
wished to know where I got those flowers, and was 
visibly relieved when he learned that I had not spent 
the institution’s money for them. He next wished to 
know who Jane might be. I had foreseen that ques¬ 
tion and decided to brazen it out. 

“ My maid,” said I. 

“ Your what? ” he bellowed, quite red in the face. 

“ My maid.” 

“ What is she doing here? ” 

I amiably went into details. “ She mends my 
clothes, blacks my boots, keeps my bureau drawers in 
order, washes my hair.” 

I really thought the man would choke, so I chari¬ 
tably added that I paid her wages out of my own private 
income, and paid five dollars and fifty cents a week to 


DEAR ENEMY 


47 

the institution for her board; and that, though she was 
big, she did n’t eat much. 

He allowed that I might make use of one of the 
orphans for all legitimate service. 

I explained — still polite, but growing bored — that 
Jane had been in my service for many years, and was 
indispensable. 

He finally took himself off, after telling me that he, 
for one, had never found any fault with Mrs. Lippett. 

The HottOVdMe CtjVUS Wijkoff 




DEAR ENEMY 


48 

She was a common-sense Christian woman, without 
many fancy ideas, but with plenty of good solid work 
in her. He hoped that I would be wise enough to 
model my policy upon hers! 

And what, my dear Judy, do you think of that? 

The doctor dropped in a few minutes later, and I 
repeated the Hon. Cyrus’s conversation in detail. For 
the first time in the history of our intercourse the doc¬ 
tor and I agreed. 

“ Mrs. Lippett indeed! ” he growled. “ The bleth¬ 
ering auld gomerel! May the Lord send him rnair 
sense! ” 

When our doctor really becomes aroused, he drops 
into Scotch. My latest pet name for him (behind his 
back) is Sandy. 

Sadie Kate is sitting on the floor as I write, un¬ 
tangling sewing-silks and winding them neatly for 
Jane, who is becoming quite attached to the little imp. 

“ I am writing to your Aunt Judy,” say I to Sadie 
Kate. “ What message shall I send from you?” 

“ I never heard of no Aunt Judy.” 

“ She is the aunt of every good little girl in this 
school.” 

“ Tell her to come and visit me and bring some 
candy,” says Sadie Kate. 

I say so, too. 

My love to the president, 

Sallie. 


March 13 . 


Mrs. Judy Abbott Pendleton, 

Dear Madam: 

Your four letters, two telegrams, and three checks 
are at hand, and your instructions shall be obeyed just 
as quickly as this overworked superintendent can man¬ 
age it. 

I delegated the dining-room job to Betsy Kindred. 
One hundred dollars did I allow her for the rehabilita¬ 
tion of that dreary apartment. She accepted the trust, 
picked out five likely orphans to assist in the mechani¬ 
cal details, and closed the door. For three days the 
children have been eating from the desks in the school¬ 
room. I have n’t an idea what Betsy is doing; but she 
has a lot better taste than I, so there is n’t much use 
in interfering. 

It is such a heaven-sent relief to be able to leave 
something to somebody else, and be sure it will be 
carried out! With all due respect to the age and ex¬ 
perience of the staff I found here, they are not very 
open to new ideas. As the John Grier Home was 
planned by its noble founder in 1875, so shall it be 
run to-day. 

Incidentally, my dear Judy, your idea of a private 
49 


50 


DEAR ENEMY 


dining-room for the superintendent, which I, being a 
social soul, at first scorned, has been my salvation. 
When I am dead tired I dine alone, but in my live 
intervals I invite an officer to share the meal; and in 
the expansive intimacy of the dinner-table I get in my 
j most effective strokes. When it becomes desirable to 
plant the seeds of fresh air in the soul of Miss Snaith, 
I invite her to dinner, and tactfully sandwich in a little 
oxygen between her slices of pressed veal. 

Pressed veal is our cook’s idea of an acceptable piece 
de resistance for a dinner party. In another month I 
am going to face the subject of suitable nourishment 
for the executive staff; meanwhile there are so many 
things more important than our own comfort that we 
shall have to worry along on veal. 

A terrible bumping has just occurred outside my 
door. One little cherub seems to be kicking another 
little cherub downstairs. But I write on undisturbed. 
If I am to spend my days among orphans, I must culti¬ 
vate a cheerful detachment. 

Did you get Leonora Fenton’s cards ? She ’s marry¬ 
ing a medical missionary and going to Siam to live! 
Did you ever hear of anything so absurd as Leonora 
presiding over a missionary’s menage? Do you sup¬ 
pose she will entertain the heathen with skirt dances? 

It is n’t any absurder, though, than me in an orphan- 
asylum, or you as a conservative settled matron, or 
Marty Keene a social butterfly in Paris. Do you sup¬ 
pose she goes to embassy balls in riding-clothes, and 


DEAR ENEMY 


5i 


what on earth does she do about hair ? It could n’t 
have grown so soon; she must wear a wig. Is n’t our 
class turning out some hilarious surprises? 

The mail arrives. Excuse me while I read a nice 
fat letter from Washington. 

Not so nice; quite impertinent. Gordon can’t get 
over the idea that it is a joke, S. McB. in conjunction 
with one hundred and thirteen orphans. But he 
would n’t think it such a joke if he could try it for a 
few days. He says he is going to drop off here on 
his next trip North and watch the struggle. How 
would it be if I left him in charge while I dashed to 
New York to accomplish some shopping? Our sheets 
are all worn out, and we have n’t more than two hun¬ 
dred and eleven blankets in the house. 

Singapore, sole puppy of my heart and home, sends 
his respectful love. 


I also, 


S. McB. 


The John Grier Home, 

Friday. 

My dearest Judy: 

You should see what your hundred dollars and Betsy 
Kindred did to that dining-room! 

It’s a dazzling dream of yellow paint. Being a 
north room, she thought to brighten it; and she has. 
The walls are kalsomined buff, with a frieze of little 
molly cottontails skurrying around the top. All of the 
woodwork — tables and benches included — is a cheer¬ 
ful chrome yellow. Instead of table-cloths, which we 
can’t afford, we have linen runners, with stenciled 
rabbits hopping along their length. Also yellow bowls, 
filled at present with pussy-willows, but looking for¬ 
ward to dandelions and cowslips and buttercups. And 
new dishes, my dear — white, with yellow jonquils (we 
think), though they may be roses; there is no botany 
expert in the house. Most wonderful touch of all, we 
have napkins, the first we have seen in our whole lives. 
The children thought they were handkerchiefs, and 
ecstatically wiped their noses. 

To honor the opening of the new room, we had ice¬ 
cream and cake for dessert. It is such a pleasure to 
see these children anything but cowed and apathetic, 
52 



H us KOy p d.ecov4te 

tl%e d m i voom 











54 


DEAR ENEMY 


that I am offering prizes for boisterousness — to every 
one but Sadie Kate. She drummed on the table with 
her knife and fork and sang, “ Welcome to dem golden 
halls.” 

You remember that illuminated text over the dining¬ 
room door —“ The Lord Will Provide.” We’ve 
painted it out, and covered the spot with rabbits. It’s 
all very well to teach so easy a belief to normal chil¬ 
dren, who have a proper family and roof behind them; 
but a person whose only refuge in distress will be a 
park bench must learn a more militant creed than that. 

“ The Lord has given you two hands and a brain and 
a big world to use them in. Use them well, and you 
will be provided for; use them ill, and you will want,” 
is our motto, and that with reservations. 

In the sorting process that has been going on I 
have got rid of eleven children. That blessed State 
Charities Aid Association helped me dispose of three 
little girls, all placed in very nice homes, and one to be 
adopted legally if the family likes her. And the fam¬ 
ily will like her; I saw to that. She was the prize child 
of the institution, obedient and polite, with curly hair 
and affectionate ways, exactly the little girl that every 
family needs. .When a couple of adopting parents 
are choosing a daughter, I stand by with my heart in 
my mouth, feeling as though I were assisting in the 
inscrutable designs of Fate. Such a little thing turns 
the balance! The child smiles, and a loving home is 
hers for life; she sneezes, and it passes her by forever. 


DEAR ENEMY 


55 


Three of our biggest boys have gone to work on 
farms, one of them out West to a RANCH! Report 
has it that he is to become a cow-boy and Indian fighter 
and grizzly-bear hunter, though I believe in reality he 
is to engage in the pastoral work of harvesting wheat. 
He marched off, a hero of romance, followed by the 
wistful eyes of twenty-five adventurous lads, who 
turned back with a sigh to the safely monotonous life 
of the J. G. H. 

Five other children have been sent to their proper 
institutions. One of them is deaf, one an epileptic, 
and the other three approaching idiocy. None of them 
ought ever to have been accepted here. This is an 
educational institution, and we can’t waste our valu¬ 
able plant in caring for defectives. 

Orphan-asylums have gone out of style. What I 
am going to develop is a boarding-school for the physi¬ 
cal, moral, and mental growth of children whose par¬ 
ents have not been able to provide for their care. 

“ Orphans ” is merely my generic term for the chil¬ 
dren; a good many of them are not orphans in the 
least. They have one troublesome and tenacious par¬ 
ent left who won’t sign a surrender, so I can’t place 
them out for adoption. But those that are available 
would be far better off in loving foster-homes than in 
the best institution that I can ever make. So I am 
fitting them for adoption as quickly as possible, and 
searching for the homes. 

You ought to run across a lot of pleasant families 


56 


DEAR ENEMY 


in your travels; can’t you bully some of them into 
adopting children? Boys by preference. We’ve got 
an awful lot of extra boys, and nobody wants them. 
Talk about anti-feminism! It’s nothing to the anti- 



masculism that exists in the breasts of adopting par¬ 
ents. I could place out a thousand dimpled little girls 
with yellow hair, but a good live boy from nine to 
thirteen is a drug on the market. There seems to be a 
general feeling that they track in dirt and scratch up 
mahogany furniture. 









DEAR ENEMY 


57 


Should n’t you think that men’s clubs might like 
to adopt boys, as a sort of mascot? The boy could 
be boarded in a nice respectable family, and drawn out 
by the different members on Saturday afternoons. 
They could take him to ball-games and the circus, and 
then return him when they had had enough, just as you 
do with a library book. It would be very valuable 
training for the bachelors. People are forever talking 
about the desirability of training girls for motherhood. 
Why not institute a course of training in fatherhood, 
and get the best men’s clubs to take it up? Will you 
please have Jervis agitate the matter at his various 
clubs, and I ’ll have Gordon start the idea in Wash¬ 
ington. They both belong to such a lot of clubs that 
we ought to dispose of at least a dozen boys. 

I remain, 

The ever-distracted mother of 113. 


S. McB. 



The John Grier Home, 

March 18. 

Dear Judy: 

I have been having a pleasant respite from the 113 
cares of motherhood. 

Yesterday who should drop down upon our peace¬ 
ful village but Mr. Gordon Hallock, on his way back 
to Washington to resume the cares of the nation. At 
least he said it was on his way, but I notice from the 
map in the primary room that it was one hundred miles 
out of his way. 

And dear, but I was glad to see him! He is the 
first glimpse of the outside world I have had since 
I was incarcerated in this asylum. And such a lot 
of entertaining businesses he had to talk about! He 
knows the inside of all of the outside things you read 
in the newspapers; so far as I can make out, he is the 
social center about which Washington revolves. I al¬ 
ways knew he would get on in politics, for he has a 
way with him; there’s no doubt about it. 

You can’t imagine how exhilarated and set-up I 
feel, as though I’d come into my own again after a 
period of social ostracism. I must confess that I get 
lonely for some one who talks my kind of nonsensical 
talk. Betsy trots off home every week-end, and the 
58 


DEAR ENEMY 


59 


doctor is conversational enough, but, oh, so horribly 
logical! Gordon somehow seems to stand for the life 
I belong to,— of country clubs and motors and danc¬ 
ing and sport and politeness,— a poor, foolish, silly 
life, if you will, but mine own. And I have missed 
it. This serving-society business is theoretically ad¬ 
mirable and compelling and interesting, but deadly 
stupid in its working details. I am afraid I was never 
born to set the crooked straight. 

I tried to show Gordon about and make him take 
an interest in the babies, but he would n’t glance at 
them. He thinks I came just to spite him, which, of 
course, I did. Your siren call would never have lured 
me from the path of frivolity had Gordon not been 
so unpleasantly hilarious at the idea of my being able 
to manage an orphan-asylum. I came here to show 
him that I could; and now, when I can show him, the 
beast refuses to look. 

I invited him to dinner, with a warning about the 
pressed veal; but he said no, thanks, that I needed a 
change. So we went to Brantwood Inn and had 
broiled lobster. I had positively forgotten that the 
creatures were edible. 

This morning at seven o’clock I was wakened by 
the furious ringing of the telephone bell. It was Gor¬ 
don at the station, about to resume his journey to 
Washington. He was in quite a contrite mood about 
the asylum, and apologized largely for refusing to 
look at my children. It was not that he did n’t like 


5o 


DEAR ENEMY 


orphans, he said; it was just that he didn’t like them 
in juxtaposition to me. And to prove his good inten¬ 
tions, he would send them a bag of peanuts. 

I feel as fresh and revivified after my little fling 
as though I’d had a real vacation. There’s no doubt 
about it, an hour or so of exciting talk is more of a 
tonic to me than a pint of iron and strychnine pills. 

You owe me two letters, dear Madam. Pay them 
tout de suite, or I lay down my pen forever. 


Yours, as usual, 



Tuesday, 5 p.m. 


My dear Enemy: 

I am told that during my absence this afternoon you 
paid us a call and dug up a scandal. You claim that 
the children under Miss Snaith are not receiving their 
due in the matter of cod-liver oil. 

I am sorry if your medicinal orders have not been 
carried out, but you must know that it is a difficult 
matter to introduce that abominably smelling stuff into 
the inside of a squirming child. And poor Miss 
Snaith is a very much overworked person. She has 
ten more children to care for than should rightly fall to 
the lot of any single woman, and until we find her an¬ 
other assistant, she has very little time for the fancy 
touches you demand. 

Also, my dear Enemy, she is very susceptible to 
abuse. When you feel in a fighting mood, I wish you 
would expend your belligerence upon me. I don’t 
mind it; quite the contrary. But that poor lady has re¬ 
tired to her room in a state of hysterics, leaving nine 
babies to be tucked into bed by whomever it may con¬ 
cern. 

If you have any powders that would be settling to 
her nerves, please send them back by Sadie Kate. 

Yours truly, 

S. McBride. 


61 



Wednesday morning. 


Dear Dr. MacRae: 

I am not taking an unintelligent stand in the least; 
I am simply asking that you come to me with all com¬ 
plaints, and not stir up my staff in any such volcanic 
fashion as that of yesterday. 

I endeavor to carry out all of your orders — of a 
medical nature — with scrupulous care. In the pres¬ 
ent case there seems to have been some negligence; I 
don’t know what did become of those fourteen un¬ 
administered bottles of cod-liver oil that you have 
made such a fuss about, but I shall investigate. 

And I cannot, for various reasons, pack off Miss 
Snaith in the summary fashion you demand. She may 
be, in certain respects, inefficient; but she is kind to the 
children, and with supervision will answer temporarily. 

Yours truly, 

S. McBride. 


62 


Thursday. 


Dear Enemy: 

Soyez tranquille. I have issued orders, and in the 
future the children shall receive all of the cod-liver oil 
that by rights is theirs. A wilfu’ man maun fiae his 
way. 

S. McB. 



63 











March 22. 


Dear Judy: 


Asylum life has looked up a trifle during the past 
few days — since the great Cod-Liver Oil War 
has been raging. The first skirmish occurred on Tues¬ 
day, and I unfortunately missed it, having accom¬ 
panied four of my children on a shopping trip to the 
village. I returned to find the asylum teeming with 
hysterics. Our explosive doctor had paid us a visit. 

Sandy has two passions in life: one is for cod- 
liver oil and the other for spinach, neither popular 
in our nursery. Some time ago — before I came, 
in fact — he had ordered cod-liver oil for all of the 


f senemic 'l 
[ aneamic J 


- Heavens 1 there’s that word again! — 


children, and had given instructions as to its applica¬ 
tion to Miss Snaith. Yesterday, in his suspicious 
Scotch fashion, he began nosing about to find out why 
the poor little rats were n’t fattening up as fast as he 
thought they ought, and he unearthed a hideous scan¬ 
dal. They haven’t received a whiff of cod-liver oil 
for three whole weeks! At that point he exploded, 
and all was joy and excitement and hysterics. 

Betsy says that she had to send Sadie Kate to the 
laundry on an improvised errand, as his language was 
64 


DEAR ENEMY 


65 


not fit for orphan ears. By the time I got home he 
had gone, and Miss Snaith had retired, weeping, to 
her room, and the whereabouts of fourteen bottles of 
cod-liver oil was still unexplained. He had accused 
her at the top of his voice of taking them herself. 
Imagine Miss Snaith,— she who looks so innocent and 
chinless and inoffensive — stealing cod-liver oil from 
these poor helpless little orphans and guzzling it in 
private! 

Her defense consisted in hysterical assertions that 
she loved the children, and had done her duty as she 
saw it. She did not believe in giving medicine to 
babies; she thought drugs bad for their poor little 
stomachs. You can imagine Sandy! Oh, dear! oh, 
dear! To think I missed it! 

Well, the tempest raged for three days, and Sadie 
Kate nearly ran her little legs off carrying peppery 
messages back and forth between us and the doctor. It 
is only under stress that I communicate with him by 
telephone, as he has an interfering old termagant of a 
housekeeper who “listens in” on the down-staiis 
switch; I don’t wish the scandalous secrets of the John 
Grier spread abroad. The doctor demanded Miss 
Snaith’s instant dismissal, and I refused. Of course 
she is a vague, unfocused, inefficient old thing, but 
she does love the children, and with proper supervision 
is fairly useful. 

At least, in the light of her exalted family con¬ 
nections, I can’t pack her off in disgrace like a drunken 



66 


DEAR ENEMY 


cook. I am hoping in time to eliminate her by a 
process of delicate suggestion; perhaps I can make her 
feel that her health requires a winter in California. 
And also, no matter what the doctor wants, so positive 
and dictatorial is his manner that just out of self- 
respect one must take the other side. When he states 
that the world is round, I instantly assert it to be 
triangular. 

Finally, after three pleasantly exhilarating days, the 
whole business settled itself. An apology (a very 
dilute one) was extracted from him for being so un¬ 
kind to the poor lady, and full confession, with prom¬ 
ises for the future, was drawn from her. It seems 
that she could n’t bear to make the little dears take the 
stuff, but, for obvious reasons, she could n’t bear to 
cross Dr. MacRae, so she hid the last fourteen bottles 
in a dark corner of the cellar. Just how she was 
planning to dispose of her loot I don’t know. Can 
you pawn cod-liver oil? 

Later. 

Peace negotiations had just ended this afternoon, 
and Sandy had made a dignified exit, when the Hon. 
Cyrus Wykoff was announced. Two enemies in the 
course of an hour are really too much! 

The Hon. Cy was awfully impressed with the new 
dining-room, especially when he heard that Betsy had 
put on those rabbits with her own lily-white hands. 


DEAR ENEMY 


67 


Stenciling rabbits on walls, he allows, is a fitting pur¬ 
suit for a woman, but an executive position like mine 
is a trifle out of her sphere. He thinks it would be 
far wiser if Mr. Pendleton did not give me such free 
scope in the spending of his money. 

While we were still contemplating Betsy’s mural 
flight, an awful crash came from the pantry, and we 
found Gladiola Murphy weeping among the ruins of 
five yellow plates. It is sufficiently shattering to my 
nerves to hear these crashes when I am alone, but it 
is peculiarly shattering when receiving a call from an 
unsympathetic trustee. 

I shall cherish that set of dishes to the best of my 
ability, but if you wish to see your gift in all its un¬ 
cracked beauty, I should advise you to hurry North, 
and visit the John Grier Home without delay. 

Yours as ever, 


Sallie. 


March 26. 


My dear Judy: 

I have just been holding an interview with a woman 
who wants to take a baby home to surprise her hus¬ 
band. I had a hard time convincing her that, since 
he is to support the child, it might be a delicate at¬ 
tention to consult him about its adoption. She ar¬ 
gued stubbornly that it was none of his business, see¬ 
ing that the onerous work of washing and dressing 
and training would fall upon her. I am really begin¬ 
ning to feel sorry for men. Some of them seem to 
have very few rights. 

Even our pugnacious doctor I suspect of being a 
victim of domestic tyranny, and his housekeeper’s at 
that. It is scandalous the way Maggie McGurk neg¬ 
lects the poor man. I have had to put him in charge 
of an orphan. Sadie Kate, with a very housewifely 
air, is this moment sitting cross-legged on the hearth— 
rug sewing buttons on his overcoat while he is upstairs 
tending babies. 

You would never believe it, bu.t , Sandy and I are 
growing quite confidential in a dour Scotch fashion. 

It has become his habit, when homeward bound after 
his professional calls, to chug up to our door about 
four in the afternoon, and make the rounds of the 
house to make sure that we are not developing cholera 
morbus or infanticide or anything catching, and then 
68 


DEAR ENEMY 69 

present himself at four-thirty at my library door to 
talk over our mutual problems. 

Does he come to see me ? Oh, no, indeed; he comes 
to get tea and toast and marmalade. The man hath 
a lean and hungry look. His housekeeper does n’t 
feed him enough. As soon as I get the upper hand of 
him a little more, I am going to urge him on to re¬ 
volt. 

Meanwhile he is very grateful for something to 
eat, but oh, so funny in his attempts at social grace! 
At first he would hold a cup of tea in one hand, a 
plate of muffins in the other, and then search blankly 
for a third hand to eat them with. Now he has solved 
the problem. He turns in his toes and brings his 
knees together; then he folds his napkin into a long, 
narrow wedge that fills the crack between them, thus 
forming a very workable pseudo-lap; after that he sits 
with tense muscles until the tea is drunk. I suppose 
I ought to provide a table, but the spectacle of Sandy 
with his toes turned in is the one gleam of amusement 
that my day affords. 

The postman is just driving in with, I trust, a letter 
from you. Letters make a very interesting break in 
the monotony of asylum life. If you wish to keep 
this superintendent contented, you’d better write 
often. 

Mail received and contents noted. 

Kindly convey my thanks to Jervis for three alii- 


70 


DEAR ENEMY 


gators in a swamp. He shows rare artistic taste in 
the selection of his post-cards. Your seven-page illus¬ 
trated letter from Miami arrives at the same time. I 
should have known Jervis from the palm-tree per¬ 
fectly, even without the label, as the tree has so much 
the more hair of the two. Also, I have a polite 
bread-and-butter letter from my nice young man in 
Washington, and a book from him, likewise a box 
of candy. The bag of peanuts for the kiddies he has 
shipped by express. Did you ever know such as¬ 
siduity ? 

Jimmie favors me with the news that he is com¬ 
ing to visit me as soon as father can spare him from 
the factory. The poor boy does hate that factory 
so! It isn’t that he is lazy; he just simply isn’t in¬ 
terested in overalls. But father can’t understand such 
a lack of taste. Having built up the factory, he of 
course has developed a passion for overalls, which 
should have been inherited by his eldest son. I find 
it awfully convenient to have been born a daughter; 
I am not asked to like overalls, but am left free to fol¬ 
low any morbid career I may choose, such as this. 

To return to my mail: There arrives an advertise¬ 
ment from a wholesale grocer, saying that he has ex¬ 
ceptionally economical brands of oatmeal, rice, flour, 
prunes, and dried apples that he packs specially for 
prisons and charitable institutions. Sounds nutritious, 
does n’t it? 

I also have letters from a couple of farmers, each 


DEAR ENEMY 


7i 


of whom would like to have a strong, husky boy of 
fourteen who is not afraid of work, their object being 
to give him a good home. These good homes appear 
with great frequency just as the spring planting is 
coming on. When we investigated one of them last 
week, the village minister, in answer to our usual ques¬ 
tion, “ Does he own any property ? ” replied in a very 
guarded manner, “ I think he must own a corkscrew.” 

You would hardly credit some of the homes that we 
have investigated. We found a very prosperous coun¬ 
try family the other day, who lived huddled together 
in three rooms in order to keep the rest of their hand¬ 
some house clean. The fourteen-year girl they wished 
to adopt, by way of a cheap servant, was to sleep in 
the same tiny room with their own three children. 
Their kitchen-dining-parlor apartment was more clut¬ 
tered up and unaired than any city tenement I ever 
saw, and the thermometer at eighty-four. One could 
scarcely say they were living there; they were rather 
cooking. You may be sure they got no girl from us! 

I have made one invariable rule — every other is 
flexible. No child is to be placed out unless the pro¬ 
posed family can offer better advantages than we can 
give. I mean than we are going to be able to give 
in the course of a few months, when we get ourselves 
made over into a model institution. I shall have to 
confess that at present we are still pretty bad. 

But anyway, I am very choosey in regard to homes, 
and I reject three-fourths of those that offer. 


72 

Later. 


DEAR ENEMY 


Gordon has made honorable amends to my chil¬ 
dren. His bag of peanuts is here, made of burlap and 
three feet high. 



Do you remember the dessert of peanuts and maple 
sugar they used to give us at college? We turned up 
our noses, but ate. I am instituting it here, and I 
assure you we don’t turn up our noses. It is a pleas¬ 
ure to feed children who have graduated from a course 
of Mrs. Lippett; they are pathetically grateful for small 
blessings. 

You can’t complain that this letter is too short. 

Yours, 

On the verge of writer’s cramp, 

S. McB. 







The John Grier Home, 

Off and on, all day Friday. 

’ Dear Judy: 

You will be interested to hear that I have en¬ 
countered another enemy — the doctor’s housekeeper. 
I had talked to the creature several times over the 
telephone, and had noted that her voice was not dis¬ 
tinguished by the soft, low accents that mark the caste 
of “Vere de Vere”; but now I have seen her. This 
morning, while returning from the village, I made a 
slight detour, and passed our doctor’s house. Sandy 
is evidently the result of environment — olive green, 
with a mansard roof and the shades pulled down. 
You would think he had just been holding a funeral. 
I don’t wonder that the amenities of life have some¬ 
what escaped the poor man. After studying the out¬ 
side of his house, I was filled with curiosity to see if 
the inside matched. 

Having sneezed five times before breakfast this 
morning, I decided to go in and consult him pro¬ 
fessionally. To be sure, he is a children’s specialist, 
but sneezes are common to all ages. So I boldly 
marched up the steps and rang the bell. 

Hark! What sound is that that breaks upon our 
revelry? The Hon. Cy’s voice, as I live, approaching 
73 


74 


DEAR ENEMY 


up the stairs. I’ve letters to write, and I can’t be tor¬ 
mented by his blether, so I am rushing Jane to the 
door with orders to look him firmly in the eye and tell 
him I am out. 

On with the dance! Let joy be unconfined. He’s 
gone. 

But those eight stars represent eight agonizing 
minutes spent in the dark of my library closet. The 
Hon. Cy received Jane’s communication with the 
affable statement that he would sit down and wait. 
Whereupon he entered and sat. But did Jane leave 
me to languish in the closet? No; she enticed him 
to the nursery to see the awful thing that Sadie Kate 
has done. The Hon. Cy loves to see awful things, 
particularly when done by Sadie Kate. I have n’t an 
idea what scandal Jane is about to disclose; but no 
matter, he has gone. 

Where was I? Oh, yes; I had rung the doctor’s 
bell. 

The door was opened by a large, husky person with 
her sleeves rolled up. She looked very businesslike, 
with a hawk’s nose and cold gray eyes. 

“ Well?” said she, her tone implying that I was a 
vacuum-cleaning agent. 

“ Good morning.” I smiled affably, and stepped 
inside. “ Is this Mrs. McGurk?” 

“ It is,” said she. “ An’ ye ’ll be the new young 
woman in the orphan-asylum? ” 


DEAR ENEMY 


75 


“ I am that/’ said I. “ Is himself at home? ” 

“ He is not,” said she. 

“ But this is his office hour.” 

“ He don’t keep it regular’.” 

“ He ought,” said I, sternly. “ Kindly tell him that 
Miss McBride called to consult him, and ask him 
to look in at the John Grier Home this after¬ 
noon.” 

“ Ump’! ” grunted Mrs. McGurk, and closed the 
door so promptly that she shut in the hem of my 
skirt. 

When I told the doctor this afternoon, he shrugged 
his shoulders, and observed that that was Maggie’s 
gracious way. 

“ And why do you put up with Maggie? ” said I. 

“ And where would I find any one better ? ” said 
he. “ Doing the work for a lone man who comes as 
irregularly to meals as a twenty-four-hour day will 
permit is no sTnecure. She furnishes little sunshine 
in the home, but she does manage to produce a hot 
dinner at nine o’clock at night.” 

Just the same, I am willing to wager that her hot 
dinners are neither delicious nor well served. She’s 
an inefficent, lazy old termagant, and I know why she 
does n’t like me. She imagines that I want to steal 
away the doctor and oust her from a comfortable po¬ 
sition, something of a joke, considering. But I am 
not undeceiving her; it will do the old thing good to 
worry a little. She may cook him better dinners, and 


76 


DEAR ENEMY 


fatten him up a trifle. I understand that fat men are 
good-natured. 



Ten o’clock. 

I don’t know what silly stuff I have been writing 
to you off and on all day, between interruptions. It 
has got to be night at last, and I am too tired to do 
so much as hold up my head. Your song tells the sad 
truth, “ There is no joy in life but sleep.” 

I bid you good night. 


S. McB. 


Is n’t the English language absurd ? Look at those 
forty monosyllables in a row! 








Dear Judy: 


J. G. H., 
April i. 


I have placed out Isador Gutschneider. His new 
mother is a Swedish woman, fat and smiling, with 
blue eyes and yellow hair. She chose him out of the 
whole nurseryful of children because he was the bru- 
nettest baby there. She has always loved brunettes, 
but in her most ambitious dreams has never hoped to 
have one of her own. His name is going to be 
changed to Oscar Carlson, after his new dead uncle. 

My first trustees’ meeting is to occur next Wednes¬ 
day. I confess that I am not looking forward to it 
with impatience — especially as an inaugural address 
by me will be its chief feature. I wish our president 
were here to back me up! But at least I am sure of 
one thing. I am never going to adopt the Uriah 
Heepish attitude toward trustees that characterized 
Mrs. Lippett’s manners. I shall treat “first Wednes¬ 
days ” as a pleasant social diversion, my day at home, 
when the friends of the asylum gather for discussion 
and relaxation; and I shall endeavor not to let our 
pleasures discommode the orphans. You see how I 
have taken to heart the unhappy experiences of that 
little Jerusha. 


77 


78 


DEAR ENEMY 


Your last letter has arrived, and no suggestion in 
it of traveling North. Isn’t it about time that you 
were turning your faces back toward Fifth Avenue? 
Hame is hame, be’t ever sae hamely. Don’t you mar¬ 
vel at the Scotch that flows so readily from my pen? 
Since being acquent’ wi’ Sandy, I hae gathered a 
muckle new vocabulary. 

The dinner gong! I leave you, to devote a revivi¬ 
fying half-hour to mutton hash. We eat to live in the 
John Grier Home. 

Six o’clock. 

The Hon. Cy has been calling again; he drops in 
with great frequency, hoping to catch me in delictu. 
How I do not like that man! He is a pink, fat, puffy 
old thing, with a pink, fat, puffy soul. I was in a 
very cheery, optimistic frame of mind before his ar¬ 
rival, but now I shall do nothing but grumble for the 
rest of the day. 

He deplores all of the useless innovations that I 
am endeavoring to introduce, such as a cheerful play¬ 
room, prettier clothes, baths, and better food and fresh 
air and play and fun and ice-cream and kisses. He 
says that I will unfit these children to occupy the posi¬ 
tion in life that God has called them to occupy. 

At that my Irish blood came to the surface, and 
I told him that if God had planned to make all of 


DEAR ENEMY 


79 


these 113 little children into useless, ignorant, un¬ 
happy citizens, I was going to fool God! That we 
were n’t educating them out of their class in the least. 
We were educating them into their natural class much 
more effectually than is done in the average family. 
;We weren’t trying to force them into college if they 
had n’t any brains, as happens with rich men’s sons; 
and we were n’t putting them to work at fourteen if 
they were naturally ambitious, as happens with poor 
men’s sons. We were watching them closely and in¬ 
dividually and discovering their level. If our children 
showed an aptitude to become farm laborers and nurse¬ 
maids, we were going to teach them to be the best 
possible farm laborers and nurse-maids; and if they 
showed a tendency to become lawyers, we would turn 
them into honest, intelligent, open-minded lawyers. 
(He’s a lawyer himself, but certainly not an open- 
minded one.) 

He grunted when I had finished my remarks, and 
stirred his tea vigorously. Whereupon I suggested 
that perhaps he needed another lump of sugar, and 
dropped it in, and left him to absorb it. 

The only way to deal with trustees is with a firm 
and steady hand. You have to keep them in their 
places. 

Oh, my dear! that smudge in the corner was caused 
by Singapore’s black tongue. He is trying to send 
you an affectionate kiss. Poor Sing thinks he’s a lap 


8o 


DEAR ENEMY 


dog — isn’t it a tragedy when people mistake their 
vocations? I myself am not always certain that I 
was born an orphan asylum superintendent. 

Yours, til deth, 

S. McB. 


Superintendent’s Office, 

John Grier Home, 

April 4. 

The Pendleton Family, 

Palm Beach, Florida. 

Dear Sir and Madam: 

I have weathered my first visitors’ day, and made 
the trustees a beautiful speech. Everybody said it was 
a beautiful speech — even my enemies. 

Mr. Gordon Hallock’s recent visit was exceptionally 
opportune; I gleaned from him many suggestions as 
to how to carry an audience. 

“ Be funny.”— I told about Sadie Kate and a few 
other cherubs that you don’t know. 

“ Keep it concrete and fitted to the intelligence of 
your audience.”—I watched the Hon. Cy, and never 
said a thing that he couldn’t understand. 

“ Flatter your hearers.”— I hinted delicately that all 
of these new reforms were due to the wisdom and in¬ 
itiative of our peerless trustees. 

“ Give it a high moral tone, with a dash of pathos.” 
r — I dwelt upon the parentless condition of these little 
wards of Society. And it was very affecting — my 
enemy wiped away a tear! 

81 


82 


DEAR ENEMY 


Then I fed them up on chocolate and whipped cream 
and lemonade and tartar sandwiches, and sent them 
home, expansive and beaming, but without any appe¬ 
tite for dinner. 

I dwell thus at length upon our triumph, in order 
to create in you a happy frame of mind, before passing 
to the^higeous'calamity that so nearly wrecked the 
occasion. 


“ Now follows the dim horror of my tale, 

And I feel I’m growing gradually pale, 

For, even at this day, 

Though its smell has passed away, 

When I venture to remember it, I quail! ” 

You never heard of our little Tammas Kehoe, did 
you? I simply haven’t featured Tammas because he 
requires so much ink and time and vocabulary. He ’s 
a spirited lad, and he follows his dad, a mighty hunter 
of old — that sounds like more Bab Ballads, but it 
is n’t; I made it up as I went along. 

We can’t break Tammas of his inherited predatory 
instincts. He shoots the chickens with bows and ar¬ 
rows and lassoes the pigs and plays bull-fight with 
the cows — and oh, is very destructive! But his 
crowning villainy occurred an hour before the trus¬ 
tees’ meeting, when we wanted to be so clean and sweet 
and engaging. 

It seems that he had stolen the rat-trap from the 
oat-bin, and had set it up in the wood lot, and yes- 


DEAR ENEMY 


83 


terday morning was so fortunate as to catch a fine 
big skunk. 

Singapore was the first to report the discovery. 
He returned to the house and rolled on the rugs in 
a frenzy of remorse over his part of the business. 
While our attention was occupied with Sing, Tammas 
was busily skinning his prey in the seclusion of the 
wood-shed. He buttoned the pelt inside his jacket, 
conveyed it by a devious route through the length of 
this building, and concealed it under his bed where 
he thought it would n’t be found. Then he went — 
per schedule — to the basement to help freeze the ice¬ 
cream for our guests. You notice that we omitted 
ice-cream from the menu. 

In the short time that remained we created all the 
counter-irritation that was possible. Noah (negro 
furnace man) started smudge fires at intervals about 
the grounds. Cook waved a shovelful of burning 
coffee through the house. Betsy sprinkled the cor¬ 
ridors with ammonia. Miss Snaith daintily treated 
the rugs with violet water. I sent an emergency call 
to the doctor, who came and mixed a gigantic solu¬ 
tion of chlorid of lime. But still, above and beneath 


and through every other odor, the unlaid ghost of 
Tammas’s victim cried for vengeance. 

The first business that came up at the meeting, was 
whether we should dig a hole and bury, not only 
Tammas, but the whole main building. You can see 
with what finesse I carried off the shocking event, 


8 4 


DEAR ENEMY 


when I tell you that the Hon. Cy went home chuckling 
over a funny story, instead of grumbling at the new 
superintendent’s inability to manage boys. 

We’ve our ain bit weird to dree! 


As ever, 

S. McBride. 


The John Grier Home, 
Friday, likewise Saturday. 

Dear Judy: 

Singapore is still living in the carriage house, and 
receiving a daily carbolic-scented bath from Tammas 
Kehoe. I am hoping that some day, in the distant fu¬ 
ture, my darling will be fit to return. 

You will be pleased to hear that I have instituted 
a new method of spending your money. We are 
henceforth to buy a part of our shoes and dry-goods 
and drug-store comestibles from local shops, at not 
quite such low prices as the wholesale jobbers give, 
but still at a discount, and the education that is be¬ 
ing thrown in is worth the difference. The reason 
is this: I have made the discovery that half of my 
children know nothing of money or its purchasing 
power. They think that shoes and corn-meal and red- 
flannel petticoats and mutton stew and gingham shirts 
just float down from the blue sky. 

Last week I dropped a new green dollar bill out 
of my purse, and an eight-year-old urchin picked it 
up and asked if he could keep that picture of a bird. 
(American eagle in the center.) That child had 
never seen a bill in his life! I began an investiga¬ 
tion, and discovered that dozens of children in this 
85 


86 


DEAR ENEMY 


asylum have never bought anything or have ever seen 
anybody buy anything. And we are planning to turn 
them out at sixteen into a world governed entirely by 
the purchasing power of dollars and cents! Good 
heavens! just think of it! They are not to lead shel¬ 
tered lives with somebody eternally looking after 
them; they have got to know how to get the very most 
they can out of every penny they can manage to earn. 

I pondered the question all one night, at intervals, 
and went to the village at nine o’clock the next morn¬ 
ing. I held conferences with seven storekeepers; 
found four open-minded and helpful, two doubtful, 
and one actively stupid. I have started with the four 
— dry-goods, groceries, shoes, and stationery. In re¬ 
turn for somewhat large orders from us, they are to 
turn themselves and their clerks into teachers for my 
children, who are to go to the stores, inspect the stocks, 
and do their own purchasing with real money. 

For example, Jane needs a spool of blue sewing- 
silk and a yard of elastic; so two little girls, intrusted 
with a silver quarter, trot hand in hand to Mr. 
Meeker’s. They match the silk with anxious care, and 
watch the clerk jealously while he measures the elas¬ 
tic, to make sure that he doesn’t stretch it. Then 
they bring back six cents change, receive my thanks 
and praise, and retire to the ranks tingling with a sense 
of achievement. 

Isn’t it pathetic? Ordinary children of ten or 
twelve automatically know so many things that our 


DEAR ENEMY 


87 

little incubator chicks have never dreamed of. But I 
have a variety of plans on foot. Just give me time, 
and you will see. One of these days I ’ll be turning 
out some nearly normal youngsters. 

Later. 

I’ve an empty evening ahead, so I ’ll settle to some 
further gossip with you. 

You remember the peanuts that Gordon Hallock 
sent? Well, I was so gracious when I thanked him 
that it incited him to fresh effort. He apparently 
went into a toy shop, and placed himself unreservedly 
in the hands of an enterprising clerk. Yesterday two 
husky expressmen deposited in our front hall a crate 
full of expensive furry animals built to be consumed 
by the children of the rich. They are not exactly what 
I should have purchased had I been the one to dis¬ 
burse such a fortune, but my babies find them very 
huggable. The chicks are now taking to bed with 
them lions and elephants and bears and giraffes. I 
don’t know what the psychological effect will be. Do 
you suppose when they grow up they will all join the 
circus? 

Oh, dear me, here is Miss Snaith, coming to pay a 
social call. 

Good-by. 

S. 


88 


DEAR ENEMY 


p.s. The prodigal has returned. He sends his re¬ 
spectful regards, and three wags of the tail. 





The John Grier Home, 
April 7. 


My dear Judy: 


I have just been reading a pamphlet on manual 
training for girls, and another on the proper diet for 
institutions — right proportions of proteids, fats, 
starches, etc. In these days of scientific charity, when 
every problem has been tabulated, you can run an 
institution by chart. I don’t see how Mrs. Lippett 
could have made all the mistakes she did, assuming, 
of course, that she knew how to read. But there is 
one quite important branch of institutional work that 
has not been touched upon, and I myself am gather¬ 
ing data. Some day I shall issue a pamphlet on the 
“ Management and Control of Trustees.” 

I must tell you the joke about my enemy — not 
the Hon. Cy, but my first, my original enemy. He 
has undertaken a new field of endeavor. He says 
quite soberly (everything he does is sober; he has 
never smiled yet) that he has been watching me 
closely since my arrival, and though I am untrained 



and foolish and flippant 


I am really so superficial as I at first appeared. I have 
an almost masculine ability of grasping the whole of a 
question and going straight to the point. 


9 o 


DEAR ENEMY 


Aren’t men funny? When they want to pay you 
the greatest compliment in their power, they naively 
tell you that you have a masculine mind. There is 
one compliment, incidentally, that I shall never be pay¬ 
ing him. I cannot honestly say that he has a quick¬ 
ness of perception almost feminine. 

So, though Sandy quite plainly sees my faults, still, 
he thinks that some of them may be corrected; and 
he has determined to carry on my education from the 
point where the college dropped it. A person in my 
position ought to be well read in physiology, biology, 
psychology, sociology, and eugenics; she should know 
the hereditary effects of insanity, idiocy, and alcohol; 
should be able to administer the^Binet test; and should 
understand the nervous system of a frog. In pursu¬ 
ance whereof, he has placed at my disposal his own 
scientific library of four thousand volumes. He not 
only fetches in the books he wants me to read, but 
comes and asks questions to make sure I haven’t 
skipped. 

We devoted last week to the life and letters of the 
Jukes family. Margaret, the mother of criminals, six 
generations ago, founded a prolific line, and her prog¬ 
eny, mostly in jail, now numbers some twelve hun¬ 
dred. Moral: watch the children with a bad heredity 
so carefully that none of them can ever have any ex¬ 
cuse for growing up into Jukeses. 

So now, as soon as we have finished our tea, Sandy 
and I get out the Doomsday Book, and pore over its 


DEAR ENEMY 


9i 


pages in an anxious search for alcoholic parents. It’s 
a cheerful little game to while away the twilight hour 
after the day’s work is done. 

Quelle vie! Come home fast and take me out of it. 
I’m wearying for the sight of you. 


Sallie. 




J. G. H., 

Thursday morning. 

My dear Pendleton Family: 

I have received your letter, and I seize my pen to 
stop you. I don’t wish to be relieved. I take it 
back. I change my mind. The person you are plan¬ 
ning to send sounds like an exact twin of Miss Snaith. 
How can you ask me to turn over my darling children 
to a kind, but ineffectual, middle-aged lady without 
any chin? The very thought of it wrings a mother’s 
heart. 

Do you imagine that such a woman can carry 
on this work even temporarily? No! The manager 
of an institution like this has got to be young and 
husky and energetic and forceful and efficient and red- 
haired and sweet-tempered, like me. Of course I ’ve 
been discontented,— anybody would be with things in 
such a mess,— but it’s what you socialists call a holy 
discontent. And do you think that I am going to 
abandon all of the beautiful reforms I have so pains¬ 
takingly started? No! I am not to be moved from 
this spot until you find a superintendent superior to 
Sallie McBride. 

That does not mean, though, that I am mortgag- 


o 2 


DEAR ENEMY 


93 


ing myself forever. Just for the present, until things 
get on their feet. While the face-washing, airing, re¬ 
constructing period lasts, I honestly believe you chose 
the right person when you hit upon me. I love to 
plan improvements and order people about. 

This is an awfully messy letter, but I’m dashing 
it off in three minutes in order to catch you before 
you definitely engage that pleasant, inefficient middle- 
aged person without a chin. 

Please, kind lady and gentleman, don’t do me out 
of me job! Let me stay a few months longer. Just 
gimme a chance to show what I’m good for, and I 
promise you won’t never regret it. 


S. McB. 



Robin MacRae 
Smiled to-day. 


It’s the truth! 




The John Grier Home, 


April 13. 

Dear Judy: 

I am gratified to learn that you were gratified to 
learn that I am going to stay. I had n’t realized it, 
but I am really getting sort of attached to orphans. 

It’s an awful disappointment that Jervis has busi¬ 
ness which will keep you South so much longer. I 
am bursting with talk, and it is such a laborious nui¬ 
sance having to write everything I want to say. 

Of course I am glad that we are to have the build¬ 
ing remodeled, and I think all of your ideas good, 
but I have a few extra good ones myself. It will be 
nice to have the new gymnasium and sleeping-porches, 
but, oh, my soul does long for cottages! The more 
I look into the internal workings of an orphan-asylum, 
the more I realize that the only type of asylum that 
can compete with a private family is one on the cot¬ 
tage system. So long as the family is the unit of so¬ 
ciety, children should be hardened early to family life. 

The problem that is keeping me awake at present 
is, What to do with the children while we are being 
made over? It is hard to live in a house and build 
it at the same time. How would it be if I rented a 
circus tent and pitched it on the lawn? 


94 


DEAR ENEMY 


95 


Also, when we plunge into our alterations, I want 
a few guest-rooms where our children can come back 
when ill or out of work. The great secret of our 
lasting influence in their lives will be our watch¬ 
ful care afterward. What a terribly alone feeling it 
must give a person not to have a family hovering 
in the background! With all my dozens of aunts 
and uncles and mothers and fathers and cousins and 
brothers and sisters, I can’t visualize it. I’d be 
terrified and panting if I did n’t have lots of cover to 
run to. And for these forlorn little mites, somehow 
or other the John Grier Home must supply their need. 
So, dear people, send me half a dozen guest-rooms, if 
you please. 

Good-by, and I’m glad you did n’t put in the other 
woman. The very suggestion of somebody else tak¬ 
ing over my own beautiful reforms before they were 
even started, stirred up all the opposition in me. I’m 
afraid I’m like Sandy — I canna think aught is dune 
richt except my ain hand is in’t. 

Yours, for the present, 


Sallie McBride. 


Dear Gordon: 


The John Grier Home, 

Sunday. 


I know that I haven’t written lately; you have a 
perfect right to grumble, but oh dear! oh dear! you 
can’t imagine what a busy person an orphan-asylum 
superintendent is. And all the writing energy I pos¬ 
sess has to be expended upon that voracious Judy Ab¬ 
bott Pendleton. If three days go by without a letter, 
she telegraphs to know if the asylum has burned; 
whereas, if you — nice man — go letterless, you sim¬ 
ply send us a present to remind us of your existence. 
So, you see, it’s distinctly to our advantage to slight 
you often. 

You will probably be annoyed when I tell you that 
I have promised to stay on here. They finally did find 
a woman to take my place, but she was n’t at all the 
right type and would have answered only temporarily. 
And, my dear Gordon, it’s true, when I faced say¬ 
ing good-by to this feverish planning and activity, 
Worcester somehow looked rather colorless. I 
could n’t bear to let my asylum go unless I was sure 
of substituting a life packed equally full of sensation. 

I know the alternative you will suggest, but please 
96 


DEAR ENEMY 


97 


don’t — just now. I told you before that I must have 
a few months longer to make up my mind. And in 
the meantime I like the feeling that I’m of use in the 
world. There’s something constructive and optimis¬ 
tic about working with children; that is, if you look 
at it from my cheerful point of view, and not from our 
Scotch doctor’s. I’ve never seen anybody like that 
man; he’s always pessimistic and morbid and down. 
It’s best not to be too intelligent about insanity and 
dipsomania and all the other hereditary details. I 
am just about ignorant enough to be light-hearted and 
effective in a place like this. 

The thought of all of these little lives expanding 
in every direction eternally thrills me; there are so 
many possibilities in our child garden for every kind 
of flower. It has been planted rather promiscuously, 
to be sure, but though we undoubtedly shall gather a 
number of weeds, we are also hoping for some rare 
and beautiful blossoms. Am I not growing sentimen¬ 
tal ? It is due to hunger — and there goes the dinner- 
gong! We are going to have a delicious meal: roast 
beef and creamed carrots and beet greens, with rhu¬ 
barb pie for dessert. Would you not like to dine with 
me? I should love to have you. 

Most cordially yours, 

S. McB. 

p.s. You should see the number of poor homeless 
cats that these children want to adopt. We had four 


9 S 


DEAR ENEMY 


when I came, and they have all had kittens since. I 
have n’t taken an exact census, but I think the institu¬ 
tion possesses nineteen. 



.SkiTnTned 11K 
is served m the. 
Woods hect cit IX O'clock 



April 15. 


My dear Judy: 

You’d like to make another slight donation to the 
J. G. H. out of the excess of last month’s allowance? 
Bene! Will you kindly have the following inserted in 
all low-class metropolitan dailies: 

Notice! 

To Parents Planning to Abandon their Children: 

Please do it before they have reached their third year. 

I can’t think of any action on the part of abandon¬ 
ing parents that would help us more effectually. This 
having to root up evil before you begin planting good 
is slow, discouraging work. 

We have one child here who has almost floored me; 
but I will not acknowledge myself beaten by a child 
of five. He alternates between sullen moroseness, 
when he won’t speak a word, and the most violent out¬ 
bursts of temper, when he smashes everything within 
reach. He has been here only three months, and in 
that time he has destroyed nearly every piece of bric- 
a-brac in the institution — not, by the way, a great loss 
to art. 

A month or so before I came he pulled the table- 


99 



IOO 


DEAR ENEMY 


cloth from the officers’ table while the girl in charge 
was in the corridor sounding the gong. The soup had 
already been served. You can imagine the mess! 
Mrs. Lippett half killed the child on that occasion, but 
the killing did nothing to lessen the temper, which was 
handed on to me intact. 

His father was Italian and his mother Irish; he 
has red hair and freckles from County Cork and 
the most beautiful brown eyes that ever came out of 
Naples. After the father was stabbed in a fight and 
the mother had died of alcoholism, the poor little chap 
by some chance or other got to us; I suspect that he 
belongs in the Catholic Protectory. As for his man¬ 
ners — oh dear! oh dear! They are what you would 
expect. He kicks and bites and swears. I have 
dubbed him Punch. 

Yesterday he was brought squirming and howling 
to my office, charged with having knocked down a 
little girl and robbed her of her doll. Miss Snaith 
plumped him into a chair behind me, and left him to 
grow quiet, while I went on with my writing. I was 
suddenly startled by an awful crash. He had pushed 
that big green jardiniere off the window-sill and 
broken it into five hundred pieces. I jumped with a 
suddenness that swept the ink-bottle to the floor, and 
when Punch saw that second catastrophe, he stopped 
roaring with rage and threw back his head and roared 
with laughter. The child is diabolical. 

I have determined to try a new method of discipline 


DEAR ENEMY 


IOI 


that I don’t believe in the whole of his forlorn little 
life he has ever experienced. I am going to. see what 
praise and encouragement and love will do. So, in¬ 
stead of scolding him about the jardiniere, I assumed 
that it was an accident. I kissed him and told him 
not to feel bad; that I did n’t mind in the least. It 
shocked him into being quiet; he simply held his breath 
and stared while I wiped away his tears and sopped 
up the ink. 

The child just now is the biggest problem that the 
J. G. H. affords. He needs the most patient, loving, 
individual care — a proper mother and father, likewise 
some brothers and sisters and a grandmother. But 
I can’t place him in a respectable family until I make 
over his language and his propensity to break things. 
I separated him from the other children, and kept 
him in my room all the morning, Jane having removed 
to safe heights all destructible objets d’art. Fortu¬ 
nately, he loves to draw, and he sat on a rug for two 
hours, and occupied himself with colored pencils. He 
was so surprised when I showed an interest in a red- 
and-green ferry-boat, with a yellow flag floating from 
the mast, that he became quite profanely affable. Un¬ 
til then I could n’t get a word out of him. 

In the afternoon Dr. MacRae dropped in and ad¬ 
mired the ferry-boat, while Punch swelled with the 
pride of creation. Then, as a reward for being such 
a good little boy, the doctor took him out in his auto¬ 
mobile on a visit to a country patient 


102 


DEAR enemy 


Punch was restored to the fold at five o’clock by 
a sadder and wiser doctor. At a sedate country estate 
he had stoned the chickens, smashed a cold frame, and 
swung the pet Angora cat by its tail. Then when 
the sweet old lady tried to make him be kind to poor 
pussy, he told her to go to hell. 

Ouv iittte Punch 



I can’t bear to consider what some of these chil¬ 
dren have seen and experienced. It will take years 
of sunshine and happiness and love to eradicate the 
dreadful memories that they have stored up in the far- 



DEAR ENEMY 


103 


back corners of their little brains. And there are so 
many children and so few of us that we can’t hug 
them enough; we simply haven’t arms or laps to go 
around. 

Mais parlons d’autres choses! Those awful ques¬ 
tions of heredity and environment that the doctor 
broods over so constantly are getting into my blood, 
too; and it’s a vicious habit. If a person is to be 
of any use in a place like this, she must see nothing 
but good in the world. Optimism is the only wear for 
a social worker. 

“ ’T is the middle of night by the castle clock ”— 
do you know^vhere that beautiful line of poetry comes 
from? “ Cristabel,” of English K. Mercy! how 
I hated that course! You, being an English shark, 
liked it; but I never understood a word that was said 
from the time I entered the class-room till I left it. 
However, the remark with which I opened this para¬ 
graph is true. It is the middle of night by the mantel¬ 
piece clock, so I 'll wish you pleasant dreams. 

Addio! 


Sallie. 


Tuesday. 


Dear Enemy: 

You doctored the whole house, then stalked past 
my library with your nose in the air, while I was wait¬ 
ing tea with a plate of Scotch scones sitting on the 
trivet, ordered expressly for you as a peace-offering. 

If you really hurt, I will read the Kailikak book; 
but I must tell you that you are working me to 
death. It takes almost all of my energy to be an 
effective superintendent, and this university-extension 
course that you are conducting I find wearing. You 
remember how indignant you were one day last week 
because I confessed to having stayed up until one 
o’clock the night before? Well, my dear man, if I 
were to accomplish all the vicarious reading you re¬ 
quire, I should sit up until morning every night. 

However, bring it in. I usually manage half an 
hour of recreation after dinner, and though I had 
wanted to glance at Wells’s latest novel, I will amuse 
myself instead with your feeble-minded family. 

Life of late is tmd> steep. 

Obligingly yours, 

S. McB. 


104 


Dear Gordon: 


The John Grier Home, 

April 17. 


Thank you for the tulips, likewise the lilies of the 
valley. They are most becoming to my blue Persian 
bowls. 

Have you ever heard of the Kallikaks? Get the 
book and read them up. They are a two-branch fam¬ 
ily in New Jersey, I think, though their real name and 
origin is artfully concealed. But, anyway,— and this 
is true,— six generations ago a young gentleman, 
called for convenience Martin Kallikak, got drunk one 
night and temporarily eloped with a feeble-minded bar¬ 
maid, thus founding a long line of feeble-minded 
Kallikaks,— drunkards, gamblers, prostitutes, horse 
thieves,— a scourge to New Jersey and surrounding 
States. 

Martin later straightened up, married a normal 
woman, and founded a second line of proper Kallikaks, 
— judges, doctors, farmers, professors, politicians,— 
a credit to their country. And there the two branches 
still are, flourishing side by side. You can see what 
a blessing it would have been to New Jersey if some¬ 
thing drastic had happened to that feeble-minded bar¬ 
maid in her infancy. 


105 


io6 


DEAR ENEMY 


It seems that feeble-mindedness is a very hereditary 
quality, and science is n’t able to overcome it. No 
operation has been discovered for introducing brains 
into the head of a child who didn’t start with them. 
And the child grows up with, say, a nine-year brain 
in a thirty-year body, and becomes an easy tool for 
any criminal he meets. Our prisons are one-third 
full of feeble-minded convicts. Society ought to seg¬ 
regate them on feeble-minded farms, where they can 
earn their livings in peaceful menial pursuits, and not 
have children. Then in a generation or so we might 
be able to wipe them out. 

Did you know all that? It’s very necessary infor¬ 
mation for a politician to have. Get the book and 
read it, please; I’d send my copy only that it’s bor¬ 
rowed. 

It’s also very necessary information for me to have. 
There are eleven of these chicks that I suspect a bit, 
and I am sure of Loretta Higgins. I have been try¬ 
ing for a month to introduce one or two basic ideas 
into that child’s brain, and now I know what the trou¬ 
ble is: her head is filled with a sort of soft cheesy 
substance instead of brain. 

I came up here to make over this asylum in such 
little details as fresh air and food and clothes and sun¬ 
shine, but, heavens! you can see what problems I am 
facing. I’ve got to make over society first, so that 
it won’t send me sub-normal children to work with. 
Excuse all this excited conversation; but I’ve just met 


DEAR ENEMY 


107 


up with the subject of feeble-mindedness, and it’s ap¬ 
palling—and interesting. It is your business as a 
legislator to make laws that will remove it from the 
world. Please attend to this immediately, 

And oblige, 

S. McBride, 
Sup’t John Grier Home. 


Friday. 

Dear Man of Science: 

You didn’t come to-day. Please don’t skip us to¬ 
morrow. I have finished the Kallikak family and I 
am bursting with talk. Don’t you think we ought to 
have a psychologist examine these children? We owe 
it to adopting parents not to saddle them with feeble¬ 
minded offspring. 

You know, I’m tempted to ask you to prescribe ar¬ 
senic for Loretta’s cold. I’ve diagnosed her case; 
she’s a Kallikak. Is it right to let her grow up and 
found a line of 378 feeble-minded people for society 
to care for ? Oh dear! I do hate to poison the child, 
but what can 1 do ? 


S. McB. 


io8 


DEAR ENEMY 


Dear Gordon: 


You aren’t interested in feeble-minded people, and 
you are shocked because I am? Well, I am equally 
shocked because you are not. If you are n’t interested 
in everything of the sort that there unfortunately is in 
this world, how can you make wise laws? You can’t. 

However, at your request, I will converse upon a 
less morbid subject. I ’ve just bought fifty yards of 
blue and rose and green and corn-colored hair-ribbon 
as an Easter present for my fifty little daughters. I 
am also thinking of sending you an Easter present. 
How would a nice fluffy little kitten please you? I 
can offer any of the following patterns: — 


1 1 3 . 

white 




DEAR ENEMY 


109 


Number 3 comes in any color, gray, black, or yel¬ 
low. If you will let me know which you would rather 
have, I will express it at once. 

I would write a respectable letter, but it’s tea-time, 
and I see that a guest approaches. 

Addio! 

Sallie. 

p.s. Don’t you know some one who would like to 
adopt a desirable baby boy with seventeen nice new 
teeth ? 



April 20. 


My dear Judy: 

One a penny, two a penny, hot cross buns! We ’ve 
had a Good Friday present of ten dozen, given by 
Mrs. De Peyster Lambert, a high-church, stained- 
glass-window soul whom I met at a tea a few days 
ago. (Who says now that teas are a silly waste of 
time?) She asked me about my “ precious little 
waifs,” and said I was doing a noble work and would 
be rewarded. I saw buns in her eye, and sat down and 
talked to her for half an hour. 

Now I shall go and thank her in person, and tell 
her with a great deal of affecting detail how much 
those buns were appreciated by my precious little waifs 
— omitting the account of how precious little Punch 
threw his bun at Miss Snaith and plastered her neatly 
in the eye. I think, with encouragement, Mrs. De 
Peyster Lambert can be developed into a cheerful 
giver. 

Oh, I ’m growing into the most shocking beggar! 
My family don’t dare to visit me, because I demand 
bakshish in such a brazen manner. I threatened to 
remove father from my calling-list unless he shipped 
immediately sixty-five pairs of overalls for my pro¬ 
spective gardeners. A notice from the freight office 


IIO 


DEAR ENEMY 


hi 


this morning asks me to remove two packing-cases con¬ 
signed to them by the J. L. McBride Co. of Worcester; 
so I take it that father desires to continue my ac¬ 
quaintance. Jimmie has n’t sent us anything yet, and 
he ’s getting a huge salary. I write him frequently a 
pathetic list of our needs. 

But Gordon Hallock has learned the way to a 
mother’s heart. I was so pleasant about the peanuts 
and menagerie that now he sends a present of some 
sort every few days, and I spend my entire time com¬ 
posing thank-you letters that aren’t exact copies of 
the ones I’ve sent before. Last week we received a 
dozen big scarlet balls. The nursery is full of them; 
you kick them before you as you walk. And yester¬ 
day there arrived a half-bushel of frogs and ducks and 
fishes to float in the bath-tubs. 

Send, O best of trustees, the tubs in which to float 
them! 

I am, as usual, 


S. McBride. 


Tuesday. 


My dear Judy: 

Spring must be lurking about somewhere; the birds 
are arriving from the South. Is n’t it time you fol¬ 
lowed their example? 



Society note from the Bird o’ Passage News: 

“ Mr. and Mrs. First Robin have returned from a 
trip to Florida. It is hoped that Mr. and Mrs. Jervis 
Pendleton will arrive shortly.” 

Even up here in our dilatory Dutchess County the 
breeze smells green; it makes you want to be out and 
away, roaming the hills, or else down on your knees 


112 



DEAR ENEMY 


ii3 

grubbing in the dirt. Is n’t it funny what farmering 
instincts the budding spring awakens in even the most 
urban souls? 

I have spent the morning making plans for little 
private gardens for every child over nine. The big 
potato-field is doomed. That is the only feasible spot 
for sixty-two private gardens. It is near enough to 
be watched from the north windows, and yet far 
enough away, so that their messing will not injure our 
highly prized landscape lawn. Also the earth is rich, 
and they have some chance of success. I don’t want 
the poor little chicks to scratch all summer, and then 
not turn up any treasure in the end. In order to fur¬ 
nish an incentive, I shall announce that the institution 
will buy their produce and pay in real money, though 
I foresee we shall be buried under a mountain of 
radishes. 

I do so want to develop self-reliance and initiative 
in these children, two sturdy qualities in which they 
are conspicuously lacking (with the exception of Sadie 
Kate and a few other bad ones). Children who have 
spirit enough to be bad I consider very hopeful; it’s 
those who are good just from inertia that are dis¬ 
couraging. 

The last few days have been spent mainly in charm¬ 
ing the devil out of Punch, an interesting task if I 
could devote my whole time to it; but with one hun¬ 
dred and seven other little devils to charm away, my 
attention is sorely deflected. 



DEAR ENEMY 


114 

The awful thing about this life is that whatever 
I am doing, the other things that I am not doing, but 
ought to be, keep tugging at my skirts. There is no 
doubt but Punch’s personal devil needs the whole at¬ 
tention of a whole person,— preferably two persons,— 
so that they could spell each other and get some rest. 

Sadie Kate has just flown in from the nursery with 
news of a scarlet gold-fish (Gordon’s gift) swallowed 
by one of our babies. Mercy! the number of calam¬ 
ities that can occur in an orphan-asylum! 

9 p. M 

My children are in bed, and I ’ve just had a thought. 
Would n’t it be heavenly if the hibernating system 
prevailed among the human young? There would be 
some pleasure in running an asylum if one could just 
tuck the little darlings into bed the first of October and 
keep them there until the twenty-second of April. 

I’m yours, as ever, 


Sallie. 


April 24. 


Dear Jervis Pendleton, Esq.: 

This is to supplement a night telegram which I sent 
you ten minutes ago. Fifty words not being enough 
to convey any idea of my emotions, I herewith add a 
thousand. 

As you will know by the time you receive this, I 
have discharged the farmer, and he has refused to 
be discharged. Being twice the size of me, I can’t lug 
him to the gate and chuck him out. He wants a noti¬ 
fication from the president of the board of trustees 
written in vigorous language on official paper in type¬ 
writing. So, dear president of the board of trustees,, 
kindly supply all of this at your earliest convenience. 

Here follows the history of the case: 

The winter season still being with us when I ar¬ 
rived and farming activities at a low ebb, I have 
heretofore paid little attention to Robert Sterry ex¬ 
cept to note on two occasions that his pig-pens needed 
cleaning; but to-day I sent for him to come and con¬ 
sult with me in regard to spring planting. 

Sterry came, as requested, and seated himself at 
ease in my office with his hat upon his head. I sug¬ 
gested as tactfully as might be that he remove it, an 
ns 


n6 


DEAR ENEMY 


entirely necessary request, as little orphan boys were 
in and out on errands, and “ hats off in the house ” is 
our first rule in masculine deportment. 

Sterry complied with my request, and stiffened him¬ 
self to be against whatever I might desire. 

I proceeded to the subject in hand, namely, that 
the diet of the John Grier Home in the year to come 
is to consist less exclusively of potatoes. At which 
our farmer grunted in the manner of the Hon. Cyrus 
Wykoff, only it was a less ethereal and gentlemanly 
grunt than a trustee permits himself. I enumerated 
corn and beans and onions and peas and tomatoes and 
beets and carrots and turnips as desirable substitutes. 

Sterry observed that if potatoes and cabbages was 
good enough for him, he guessed they was good 
enough for charity children. 

I proceeded imperturbably to say that the two-acre 
potato-field was to be plowed and fertilized, and laid 
out into sixty individual gardens, the boys assisting in 
the work. 

At that Sterry exploded. The two-acre field was 
the most fertile and valuable piece of earth on the 
whole place. He guessed if I was to break that up 
into play-gardens for the children to mess about in, 
I’d be hearing about it pretty danged quick from 
the board of trustees. That field was fitted for pota¬ 
toes, it had always raised potatoes, and it was going to 
continue to raise them just as long as he had anything 
to say about it. 


DEAR ENEMY 


ii 7 


RAD IS HES 


* r f f VT°f t T 7 7 <v 

y r h 



“You have nothing whatever to say about it,” I 
amiably replied. “ I have decided that the two-acre 
field is the best plot to use for the children’s gardens, 
and you and the potatoes will have to give way.” 

Whereupon he rose in a storm of bucolic wrath, and 
said he’d be gol darned if he’d have a lot of these 
danged city brats interfering with his work. 











n8 


DEAR ENEMY 


I explained — very calmly for a red-haired person 
with Irish forebears — that this place was run for 
the exclusive benefit of these children; that the chil¬ 
dren were not here to be exploited for the benefit of 
the place, a philosophy which he did not grasp, though 
my fancy city language had a slightly dampening ef¬ 
fect. I added that what I required in a farmer was 
the ability and patience to instruct the boys in garden¬ 
ing and simple outdoor work; that I wished a man 
of large sympathies whose example would be an in¬ 
spiring influence to these children of the city streets. 

Sterry, pacing about like a caged woodchuck, 
launched into a tirade about silly Sunday-school no¬ 
tions, and, by a transition which I did not grasp, passed 
to a review of the general subject of woman's suf¬ 
frage. I gathered that he is not in favor of the move¬ 
ment. I let him argue himself quiet, then I handed 
him a check for his wages, and told him to vacate the 
tenant house by twelve o'clock next Wednesday. 

Sterry says he’ll be danged if he will. (Excuse 
so many dangcds. It is the creature’s only adjec¬ 
tive.) He was engaged to work for this institution 
by the president of the board of trustees, and he will 
not move from that house until the president of the 
board of trustees tells him to go. I don't think poor 
Sterry realizes that since his arrival a new president 
has come to the throne. 

Alors you have the story. I make no threats, but 
Sterry or McBride — take your choice, dear sir. 


DEAR ENEMY 


1 19 

I am also about to write to the head of the Massa¬ 
chusetts Agricultural College, at Amherst, asking 
him to recommend a good, practical man with a nice, 
efficient, cheerful wife, who will take the entire care 
of our modest domain of seventeen acres, and who 
will be a man with the right personality to place over 
our boys. 

If we get the farming end of this institution into 
running shape, it ought to furnish not only beans and 
onions for the table, but education for our hands and 
brains. 

I remain, sir, 

Yours most truly, 

S. McBride; 

Superintendent of the 
John Grier Home. 

p.s. I think that Sterry will probably come back some 
night and throw rocks through the windows. Shall I 
have them insured? 


My dear Enemy: 

You disappeared so quickly chis afternoon that I 
had no chance to thank you, but the echoes of that dis¬ 
charge penetrated as far as my library. Also, I have 
viewed the debris. What on earth did you do to poor 
Sterry? Watching the purposeful set of your shoul¬ 
ders as you strode toward the carriage-house, I was 
filled with sudden compunction. I did not want the 
man murdered, merely reasoned with. I am afraid 
you were a little harsh. 

However, your technic seems to have been effective. 
Report says that he has telephoned for a moving- 
wagon and that Mrs. Sterry is even now on her hands 
and knees ripping up the parlor carpet. 

For this relief much thanks. 

Sallie McBride. 


120 


April 26. 

Dear Jervis: 

Your vigorous telegram was, after all, not needed. 
Dr. Robin MacRae, who is a grand pawky mon when it 
comes to a fight, accomplished the business with beau¬ 
tiful directness. I was so bubbling with rage that im¬ 
mediately after writing to you I called up the doctor 
on the telephone, and rehearsed the whole business 
over again. Now, our Sandy, whatever his failings 
(and he has them), does have an uncommon supply of 
common sense. He knows how useful those gardens 
are going to be, and how worse than useless Sterry 
was. Also says he, “ The superintendent’s authority 
must be upheld.” (That, incidentally, is beautiful, 
coming from him.) But anyway, those were his 
words. And he hung up the receiver, cranked up his 
car, and flew up here at lawless speed. He marched 
straight to Sterry, impelled by a fine Scotch rage, and 
he discharged the man with such vigor and precision, 
that the carriage-house window was shattered to frag¬ 
ments. 

Since this morning at eleven, when Sterry’s wagon¬ 
load of furniture rumbled out of A'* gates, a sweet 
peace has reigned over the J. G. K. A man from the 


121 


122 


DEAR ENEMY 


village is helping us out while we hopefully await the 
farmer of our dreams. 

I am sorry to have troubled you with our troubles. 
Tell Judy that she owes me a letter, and won’t hear 
from me until she has paid it. 

Your ob’d’t servant, 


S. McBride. 


Dear Judy: 

In my letter of yesterday to Jervis I forgotted 
(Punch’s word) to convey to you our thanks for three 
tin bath-tubs. The sky-blue tub with poppies on the 
side adds a particularly bright note to the nursery. I 
I do love presents for the babies that are too big to 
be swallowed. 

You will be pleased to hear that our manual train¬ 
ing is well under way. The carpenter-benches are be¬ 
ing installed in the old primary room, and until our 
school-house gets its new addition, our primary class 
is meeting on the front porch, in accordance with Miss 
Matthew’s able suggestion. 

The girls’ sewing-classes are also in progress. A 
circle of benches under the copper beech-tree accom¬ 
modates the hand sewers, while the big girls take turns 
at our three machines. Just as soon as they gain some 
proficiency we will begin the glorious work of redress¬ 
ing the institution. I know you think I’m slow, but 
it’s really a task to accomplish one hundred and eighty 
new frocks. And the girls will appreciate them so 
much more if they do the work themselves. 

I may also report that our hygiene system has risen 
to a high level. Dr. MacRae has introduced morning 
and evening exercises, and a glass of milk and a game 
123 


124 


DEAR ENEMY 


of tag in the middle of school hours. He has insti¬ 
tuted a physiology class, and has separated the children 
into small groups, so that they may come to his house, 
where he has a manikin that comes apart and shows 
all its messy insides. They can now rattle off scientific 
truths about their little digestions as fluently as Mother- 
Goose rhymes. We are really becoming too intelli¬ 
gent for recognition. You would never guess that we 
were orphans to hear us talk; we are quite like Bos¬ 
ton children. 

2 P.M. 

O Judy, such a calamity! Do you remember sev¬ 
eral weeks ago I told you about placing out a nice 
little girl in a nice family home where I hoped she 
would be adopted? It was a kind Christian family 
living in a pleasant country village, the foster-father a 
deacon in the church. Hattie was a sweet, obedient, 
housewifely little body, and it looked as though we 
had exactly fitted them to each other. My dear, she 
was returned this morning for stealing. Scandal piled 
on scandal: she had stolen a communion-cnp from 
church ! 

Between her sobs and their accusations it took me 
half an hour to gather the truth. It seems that the 
church they attend is very modern and hygienic, like 
our doctor, and has introduced individual communion- 
cups. Poor little Hattie had never heard of com- 


DEAR ENEMY 


125 


munion in her life; in fact, she wasn’t very used to 
church, Sunday-school having always sufficed for her 
simple religious needs. But in her new home she 
attended both, and one day, to her pleased surprise, 
they served refreshments. But they skipped her. She 
made no comment, however; she is used to being 
skipped. But as they were starting home she saw 
that the little silver cup had been casually left in the 
seat, and supposing that it was a souvenir that you 
could take if you wished, she put it into her pocket. 

It came to light two days later as the most treas¬ 
ured ornament of her doll’s-house. It seems that Hat¬ 
tie long ago saw a set of doll’s-dishes in a toy-shop 
window, and has ever since dreamed of possessing a 
set of her own. The communion-cup was not quite 
the same, but it answered. Now, if our family had 
only had a little less religion and a little more sense, 
they would have returned the cup, perfectly unharmed, 
and have marched Hattie to the nearest toy-shop and 
bought her some dishes. But instead, they bundled 
the child and her belongings into the first train they 
could catch, and shoved her in at our front door, pro¬ 
claiming loudly that she was a thief. 

I am pleased to say that I gave that indignant deacon 
and his wife such a thorough scolding as I am sure 
they have never listened to from the pulpit; I bor¬ 
rowed some vigorous bits from Sandy’s vocabulary, 
and sent them home quite humbled. As for poor little 
Hattie, here she is back again, after going out with 


126 


DEAR ENEMY 


such high hopes. It has an awfully bad moral effect 
on a child to be returned to the asylum in disgrace, es¬ 
pecially when she was n’t aware of committing a crime. 
It gives her a feeling that the world is full of unknown 
pitfalls, and makes her afraid to take a step. I must 
bend all my energies now toward finding another set of 
parents for her, and ones that haven’t grown so old 
and settled and good that they have entirely forgotten 
their own childhood. 


Sunday. 

I forgot to tell you that our new farmer is here, 
Turnfelt by name; and his wife is a love, yellow hair 
and dimples. If she were an orphan, I could place 
her in a minute. We can’t let her go to waste. I 
have a beautiful plan of building an addition to the 
farmer’s cottage, and establishing under her comfort¬ 
able care a sort of brooding-house where we can place 
our new little chicks, to make sure they have n’t any¬ 
thing contagious and to eliminate as much profanity 
as possible before turning them loose among our other 
perfect chicks. 

How does that strike you? It is very necessary in 
an institution as full of noise and movement and stir 
as this to have some isolated spot where we can put 
cases needing individual attention. Some of our chil¬ 
dren have inherited nerves, and a period of quiet con¬ 
templation is indicated. Is n’t my vocabulary profes- 


DEAR ENEMY 


127 

sional and scientific ? Daily intercourse with Dr. 
Robin MacRae is extremely educational. 

Since Turnfelt came, you should see our pigs. They 
are so clean and pink and unnatural that they don’t 
recognize one another any more as they pass. 



Our potato-field is also unrecognizable. It has been 
divided with string and pegs into as many squares as 
a checker-board, and every child has staked out a 
claim. Seed catalogues form our only reading matter. 

Noah has just returned from a trip to the village 
for the Sunday papers to amuse his leisure. Noah 
is a very cultivated person; he not only reads perfectly, 
but he wears tortoise-shell-rimmed spectacles while he 
does it. He also brought from the post-office a letter 
from you, written Friday night. I am pained to note 
that you do not care for “Gosta Berling” and that 
Jervis does n’t. .The only comment I can make is> 





128 


DEAR ENEMY 


“ What a shocking lack of literary taste in the Pendle¬ 
ton family! ” 

Dr. MacRae has another doctor visiting him, a very 
melancholy gentleman who is at the head of a private 
psychopathic institution, and thinks there’s no good in 
life. But I suppose this pessimistic view is natural 
if you eat three meals a day with a tableful of melan¬ 
cholics. He goes up and down the world looking for 
signs of degeneracy, and finds them everywhere. I 
expected, after half an hour’s conversation, that he 
would ask to look down my throat to see if I had a 
cleft palate. Sandy’s taste in friends seems to re¬ 
semble his taste in literature. 

Gracious! this is a letter [ 


Good-by. 


Sali 



Thursday, May 2. 


Dear Judy: 

Such a bewildering whirl of events! The J. G. H. 
is breathless. Incidentally, I am on the way toward 
solving my problem of what to do with the children 
while the carpenters and plumbers and masons are 
here. Or, rather, my precious brother has solved it 
for me. 

This afternoon I went over my linen supply, and 
made the shocking discovery that we have only sheets 
enough to change the children’s beds every two weeks, 
which, it appears, is our shiftless custom. While I 
was still in the midst of my household gear, withixf 
bunch of keys at my girdle, looking like the chitelaine 
of a medieval chateau, who should be ushered in but 
Jimmie? 

Being extremely occupied, I dropped a slanting kiss' 
on his nose, and sent him off to look over the place 
in charge of my two oldest urchins. They collected 
six friends and organized a base-ball game. Jimmie 
came back blown, but enthusiastic, and consented to 
prolong his visit over the week-end, though after the 
dinner I gave him he has decided to take his future 
meals at the hotel. As we sat with our coffee before 
the fire, I confided to him my anxiety as to what should 
129 


130 


DEAR ENEMY 


be done with the chicks while their new brooder is 
building. You know Jimmie. In one half a minute 
his plan was formulated. 

“ Build an Adirondack camp on that little plateau 
up by the wood-lot. You can make three open shacks, 
each holding eight bunks, and move the twenty-four 
oldest boys out there for the summer. It won’t cost 
two cents.” 

“ Yes,” I objected, “ but it will cost more than two 
cents to engage a man to look after them.” 

“ Perfectly easy,” said Jimmie, grandly. “ I ’ll find 
you a college fellow who ’ll be glad to come during the 
vacation for his board and a mere pittance, only you ’ll 
have to set up more filling board than you gave me 
to-night.” 

Dr. MacRae dropped in about nine o’clock, after 
visiting the hospital ward. We ’ve got three cases of 
whooping-cough, but all isolated, and no more coming. 
How those three got in is a mystery. It seems there 
is a little bird that brings whooping-cough to orphan- 
asylums. 

Jimmie fell upon him for backing in his camp 
scheme, and the doctor gave it enthusiastically. They 
seized pencil and paper and drew up plans; and before 
the evening was over, the last nail was hammered. 
Nothing would satisfy those two men but to go to the 
telephone at ten o’clock and rouse a poor carpenter 
from his sleep. He and some lumber are ordered for 
eight in the morning. 


DEAR ENEMY 


131 

I finally got rid of them at ten-thirty, still talking 
uprights and joists and drainage and roof slants. 

The excitement of Jimmie and coffee and all these 
building operations induced me to sit down imme¬ 
diately and write a letter to you; but I think, by your 
leave, I ’ll postpone further details to another time. 

Yours ever, 

Sallie. 


Saturday. 

Dear Enemy: 

Will you be after dining with us at seven to-night? 
It’s a real dinner-party; we’re going to have ice-cream. 

My brother has discovered a promising young man 
to take charge of the boys,— maybe you know him,— 
Mr. Witherspoon, at the bank. I wish to introduce 
him to asylum circles by easy steps, so please don’t men¬ 
tion insanity or epilepsy or alcoholism or any of your 
other favorite topics. 

He is a gay young society leader, used to very fancy 
things to eat. Do you suppose we can ever make him 
happy at the John Grier Home? 

Yours in evident haste, 


Sallie McBride. 


Sunday. 


Dear Judy: 

Jimmie was back at eight Friday morning, and the 
doctor at a quarter past. They and the carpenter and 
our new farmer and Noah and our two horses and our 
eight biggest boys have been working ever since. 
Never were building operations set going in faster 
time. I wish I had a dozen Jimmies on the place, 
though I will say that my brother works faster if you 
catch him before the first edge of his enthusiasm 
wears away. He would not be much good at chiseling 
out a medieval cathedral. 

He came back Saturday morning aglow with a new 
idea. He had met at the hotel the night before a 
, friend who belongs to his hunting-club in Canada, and 
who is cashier of our First (and only) National Bank. 

“ He’s a bully good sport,” said Jimmie, “ and 
exactly the man you want to camp out with those kids 
and lick ’em into shape. He ’ll be willing to come for 
his board and forty dollars a month, because he’s en¬ 
gaged to a girl in Detroit and wants to save. I told 
him the food was rotten, but if he kicked enough, 
you’d probably get a new cook.” 

“ What’s his name? ” said I, with guarded interest. 

132 


DEAR ENEMY 


133 

" He’s got a peach of a name. It’s Percy de Forest 
Witherspoon.” 

I nearly had hysterics. Imagine a Percy de Forest 
Witherspoon in charge of those twenty-four wild little 
savages! 

But you know Jimmie when he has an idea. He^ 
had already invited Mr. Witherspoon to dine with me 
on Saturday evening, and had ordered oysters and 
squabs and ice-cream from the village caterer to help 
out my veal. It ended by my giving a very formal 
dinner-party, with Miss Matthews and Betsy and the 
doctor included. 

I almost asked the Hon. Cy and Miss Snaith. Ever 
since I have known those two, I have felt that there 
ought to be a romance between them. Never have I 
known two people who matched so perfectly. He’s ai 
widower with five children. Don’t you suppose it 
might be arranged? If he had a wife to take up his 
attention, it might deflect him a little from us. I’d 
be getting rid of them both at one stroke. It’s to be 
considered among our future improvements. 

Anyway, we had our dinner. And during the 
course of the evening my anxiety grew, not as to 
whether Percy would do for us, but as to whether we 
should do for Percy. If I searched the world over, 
I never could find a young man more calculated to win 
the affection of those boys. You know, just by look¬ 
ing at him, that he does everything well, at least every¬ 
thing vigorous. His literary and artistic accomplish- 


134 


DEAR ENEMY 


ments I suspect a bit, but he rides and shoots and 
plays golf and foot-ball and sails a boat. He likes to 
sleep out of doors and he likes boys. He has always 
wanted to, know some orphans; often read about ’em 
; in books, he says, but never met any face to face. 
Percy does seem too good to be true. 

Before they left, Jimmie and the doctor hunted up a 
lantern, and in their evening clothes conducted Mr. 
Witherspoon across a plowed field to inspect his future 
dwelling. 

And such a Sunday as we passed! I had absolutely 
to forbid their carpentering. Those men would have 
put in a full day, quite irrespective of the damage done 
to one hundred and four little moral natures. As it 
is, they have just stood and looked at those shacks 
and handled their hammers, and thought about where 
they would drive the first nail to-morrow morning. 
The more I study men, the more I realize that they 
are nothing in the world but boys grown too big to be 
spankable. 

I am awfully worried as to how to feed Mr. Wither¬ 
spoon. He looks as though he had a frightfully 
healthy appetite, and he looks as though he couldn’t 
swallow his dinner unless he had on evening clothes. 
I’ve made Betsy send home for a trunkful of evening 
gowns in order to keep up our social standing. One 
thing is fortunate: he takes his luncheon at the hotel, 
and I hear their luncheons are very filling. 

Tell Jervis I am sorry he is not with us to drive 


DEAR ENEMY 135 

a nail for the camp. Here comes the Hon. Cy up 
the path. Heaven save us! 

Ever your unfortunate, 

S. McB. 


The John Grier Home, 

May 8. 


Dear Judy: 

Our camp is finished, our energetic brother has gone, 
and our twenty-four boys have passed two healthful 
nights in the open. The three bark-covered shacks 
add a pleasant rustic touch to the grounds. They are 
like those we used to have in the Adirondacks, closed 
on three sides and open in the front, and one larger 
than the rest to allow a private pavilion for Mr. Percy 
[Witherspoon. An adjacent hut, less exposed to the 
weather, affords extremely adequate bathing facilities, 
consisting of a faucet in the wall and three watering- 
cans. Each camp has a bath-master who stands on a 
stool and sprinkles each little shiverer as he trots under. 
Since our trustees won't give us enough bath-tubs, we 
have to use our wits. 

The three camps have organized into three tribes 
of Indians, each with a chief of its own to answer for 
its conduct, Mr. Witherspoon high chief of all, and 
Dr. MacRae the medicine man. They dedicated their 
lodges Tuesday evening with appropriate tribal cere¬ 
monies ; and though they politely invited me to attend, 
I decided that it was a purely masculine affair, so I 
declined to go, but sent refreshments, a very popular 
136 


DEAR ENEMY 


*37 


move. Betsy and I walked as far as the base-ball-field 
in the course of the evening, and caught a glimpse 
of the orgies. The braves were squatting in a circle 
about a big fire, each decorated with a blanket from 
his bed and a rakish band of feathers. (Our chickens 
seem very scant as to tail, but I have asked no un¬ 
pleasant questions.) The doctor, with a Navajo blan¬ 
ket about his shoulders, was executing a war-dance, 
while Jimmie and Mr. Witherspoon beat on war-drums 
— two of our copper kettles, now permanently dented. 
Fancy Sandy! It’s the first youthful glimmer I have 
ever caught in the man. 

After ten o’clock, when the braves were safely 
stowed for the night, the three men came in and 
limply dropped into comfortable chairs in my library, 
with the air of having made martyrs of themselves in 
the great cause of charity. But they did not deceive 
me. They originated all that tomfoolery for their 
own individual delectation. 

So far Mr. Percy Witherspoon appears fairly happy. 
He is presiding at one end of the officers’ table under 
the special protection of Betsy, and I am told that he 
instils considerable life into that sedate assemblage. 
I have endeavored to run up their menu a trifle, and he 
accepts what is put before him with a perfectly good 
appetite, irrespective of the absence of such accus¬ 
tomed trifles as oysters and quail and soft-shell crabs. 

There was no sign of a private sitting-room that I 
could put at this young man’s disposal, but he himself 


DEAR ENEMY 


138 

has solved the difficulty by proposing to occupy our 
new laboratory. So he spends his evenings with a 
book and a pipe, comfortably stretched in the dentist’s 
chair. There are not many society men who would be 
willing to spend their evenings so harmlessly. That 
girl in Detroit is a lucky young thing. 

Mercy! An automobile full of people has just 
arrived to look over the institution, and Betsy, who 
usually does the honors, not here. I fly. 

f Addio! 

Sallie. 


My dear Gordon: 

This is not a letter,— I don’t owe you one,— it’s a 
receipt for sixty-five pairs of roller-skates. 

Many thanks. 

S. McB. 



139 










Friday. 


Dear Enemy: 

I hear that I missed a call to-day, but Jane delivered 
your message, together with the “ Genetic Philosophy 
of Education/’ She says that you will call in a few 
days for my opinion of the book. Is it to be a written 
or ari"'< 5 ral examination? 

And does n’t it ever occur to you that this education 
business is rather one-sided? It often strikes me that 
Dr. Robin MacRae’s mental attitude would also be the 
better for some slight refurbishing. I will promise 
to read your book, provided you read one of mine. I 
am sending herewith the “ Dolly Dialogues,” and shall 
ask for an opinion in a day or so. 

It’s uphill work making a Scotch Presbyterian friv¬ 
olous, but persistency accomplishes wonders. 

S. McB. 


140 


May 13. 


My dear, dear Judy: 

Talk about floods in Ohio! Right here in Dutchess 
County we are the consistency of a wet sponge. Rain 
for five days, and everything wrong with this institu¬ 
tion. 

The babies have had croup, and we have been up o’ 
nights with them. Cook has given notice, and there’s 
a dead rat in the walls. Our three camps leaked, and 
in the early dawn, after the first cloud-burst, twenty- 
four bedraggled little Indians, wrapped in damp bed¬ 
ding, came shivering to the door and begged for ad¬ 
mission. Since then every clothes-line, every stair¬ 
railing has been covered with wet and smelly blankets 
that steam, but won’t dry. Mr. Percy de Forest With¬ 
erspoon has returned to the hotel to wait until the sun 
comes out. 

After being cooped up for four days with no exer¬ 
cise to speak of, the children’s badness is breaking out 
in red spots, like the measles. Betsy and I have 
thought of every form of active and innocent occupa¬ 
tion that could be carried on in such a congested quar¬ 
ter as this: blind-man’s-buff and pillow fights and hide- 
and-go-seek, gymnastics in the dining-room, and bean- 
bags in the school-room. (We broke two windows .) 4 
141 


142 


DEAR ENEMY 


The boys played leap-frog up and down the hall, and 
jarred all the plaster in the building. We have cleaned 
energetically and furiously. All the woodwork has 
been washed, and all of the floors polished; but despite 
everything, we have a great deal of energy left, and 
we are getting to that point of nerves where we want 
to punch one another. 

Sadie Kate has been acting like a little deil — do 
they have feminine deils? If not, Sadie Kate has 
originated the species. And this afternoon Loretta 
Higgins had — well, I don’t know whether it was a 
sort of fit or just a temper She lay down on the floor 
and howled for a solid hour, and when any one tried 
to approach her, she thrashed about like a little wind¬ 
mill and bit and kicked. 

By the time the doctor came she had pretty well 
worn herself out. He picked her up, limp and droop¬ 
ing, and carried her to a cot in the hospital-room; and 
after she was asleep he came down to my library and 
asked to look at the archives. 

Loretta is thirteen; in the three years she has been 
here she has had five of these outbreaks, and has been ’ 
punished good and hard for them. The child’s an¬ 
cestral record is simple: “ Mother died of alcoholic 
dementia, Bloomingdale Asylum. Father unknown.” 

He studied the page long and frowningly and shook 
his head. 

“ With a heredity like that, is it right to punish the 
child for having a shattered nervous system ? ” 


DEAR ENEMY 


143 

“ It is not,” said I, firmly. “ We will mend her 
shattered nervous system.” 

“ If we can.” 

“ We ’ll feed her up on cod-liver oil and sunshine, 
and find a nice kind foster-mother who will take pity 
on the poor little—” 

But then my voice trailed off into nothing as I pic¬ 
tured Loretta’s face, with her hollow eyes and big nose 
and open mouth and no chin and stringy hair and 
sticking-out ears. No foster-mother in the world 
would love a child who looked like that. 

“ Why, oh, why,” I wailed, “ does n’t the good Lord 
send orphan children with blue eyes and curly hair 
and loving dispositions? I could place a million of 
that sort in kind homes, but no one wants Loretta.” 

“ I’m afraid the good Lord doesn’t have anything 
to do with bringing our Lorettas into the world. It is 
the devil who attends to them.” 

Poor Sandy! He gets awfully pessimistic about the 
future of the universe; but I don’t wonder, with such 
a cheerless life as he leads. He looked to-day as 
though his own nervous system was shattered. He 
had been splashing about in the rain since five this 
morning, when he was called to a sick-baby case. I 
made him sit down and have some tea, and we had a 
nice, cheerful talk on drunkenness and idiocy and 
epilepsy and insanity. He dislikes alcoholic parents, 
but he ties himself into a knot over insane parents. 

Privately, I don’t believe there’s one thing in hered- 


144 


DEAR ENEMY 


ity, provided you snatch the babies away before their 
eyes are opened. We ’ve got the sunniest youngster 
here you ever saw; his mother and Aunt Ruth and 
Uncle Silas all died insane, but he is as placid and unex- 
citable as a cow. 

Good-by, my dear. I am sorry this is not a more 
cheerful letter, though at this moment nothing un¬ 
pleasant seems to be happening. It’s eleven o’clock, 
and I have just stuck my head into the corridor, and 
all is quiet except for two banging shutters and leak¬ 
ing eaves. I promised Jane I would go to bed at ten. 

Good night, and joy be wi’ ye baith! 

Sallie. 

p.s. There is one thing in the midst of all my troubles 
that I have to be grateful for: the Hon. Cy has been 
stricken with a lingering attack! of .grippe. In a burst 
of thankfulness I sent him a bunch of violets, 
p.s. 2. We are having an epidemic of pink-eye. 


May 16. 


Good morning, my dear Judy! 

Three days of sunshine, and the J. G. H. is smiling. 

I am getting my immediate troubles nicely settled. 
Those beastly blankets have dried at last, and our 
camps have been made livable again. They are floored 
with wooden slats and roofed with tar-paper. (Mr. 
^Witherspoon calls them chicken-coops.) We are dig¬ 
ging a stone-lined ditch to convey any further cloud¬ 
bursts from the plateau on which they stand to the 
corn-field below. The Indians have resumed savage 
life, and their chief is back at his post. 

The doctor and I have been giving Loretta Higgins’s 
nerves our most careful consideration. We think that 
this barrack life, with its constant movement and stir, 
is too exciting, and we have decided that the best plan 
will be to board her out in a private family, where 
she will receive a great deal of individual attention. 

The doctor, with his usual resourcefulness, has pro¬ 
duced the family. They live next door to him and are 
very nice people; I have just returned from calling. 
The husband is foreman of the casting-room at the 
iron works, and the wife is a comfortable soul who 
shakes all over when she laughs. They live mostly in 
their kitchen in order to keep the parlor neat; but it 
i45 


146 


DEAR ENEMY 


is such a cheerful kitchen that I should like to live in 
it myself. She has potted begonias in the window and 
a nice purry tiger cat asleep on a braided rug in front 
of the stove. She bakes on Saturday — cookies and 
gingerbread and doughnuts. I am planning to pay 
my weekly call upon Loretta every Saturday morning 
at eleven o’clock. Apparently I made as favorable an 
impression on Mrs. Wilson as she made on me. After 
I had gone, she confided to the doctor that she liked 
me because I was just as common as she was. 

Loretta is to learn housework and have a little gar¬ 
den of her own, and particularly play out of doors 
in the sunshine. She is to go to bed early and be fed 
up on nice nourishing food, and they are to pet her 
and make her happy. All this for three dollars a 
week! 

Why not find a hundred such families, and board out 
all the children? Then this building could be turned 
into an idiot-asylum, and I, not knowing anything 
about idiots, could conscientiously resign and go back 
home and live happily ever after. 

Really, Judy, I am growing frightened. This asy¬ 
lum will get me if I stay long enough. I am becom¬ 
ing so interested in it that I can’t think or talk or 
dream of anything else. You and Jervis have blasted 
all my prospects in life. 

Suppose I should retire and marry and have a fam¬ 
ily ; as families go nowadays, I could n’t hope for more 
than five or six children at the most, and all with the 


DEAR ENEMY 


H 7 . 

same heredity. But, mercy! such a family appears per¬ 
fectly insignificant and monotonous. You have in¬ 
stitutionalized me. 

Reproachfully yours, 

Sallie McBride. 

p.s. We have a child here whose father was lynched. 
Is n’t that a piquant detail to have in one’s history ? 



Tuesday. 


Dearest Judy: 

What shall we do? Mamie Prout does not like 
prunes. This antipathy to a cheap and healthful food¬ 
stuff is nothing but imagination, and ought not to be 
countenanced among the inmates of a well-managed 
institution. Mamie must be made to like prunes. So 
says our grammar teacher, who spends the noonday 
hour with us and overlooks the morals of our charges. 
About one o’clock to-day she marched Mamie to my 
office charged with the offense of refusing, absolutely 
refusing, to open her mouth and put in a prune. The 
child was plumped down on a stool to await punish¬ 
ment from me. 

Now, as you know, I do not like bananas, and I 
should hate awfully to be forced to swallow them; so, 
by the same token, why should I force Mamie Prout 
to swallow prunes? 

While I was pondering a course that would seem 
to uphold Miss Keller’s authority, but would at the 
same time leave a loophole for Mamie, I was called 
to the telephone. 

“ Sit there until I come back,” I said, and went out 
and closed the door. 

The message was from a kind lady wishing to motor 
me to a committee meeting. I didn’t tell you that I 
am organizing local interest in our behalf. The idle 
148 


DEAR ENEMY 


149 


rich who posses® estates in this neighborhood are be¬ 
ginning to drift out from town, and I am laying my 
plans to catch them before they are deflected by too 
many garden parties and tennis tournaments. They 
have never been of the slightest use to this asylum, 
and I think it’s about time they woke up to a realiza¬ 
tion of our presence. 

Returning at tea-time, I was waylaid in the hall by 
Dr. MacRae, who demanded some statistics from my 
office. I opened the door, and there sat Mamie Prout 
exactly where she had been left four hours before. 

“ Mamie darling I ” I cried in horror. “ You 
have n’t been here all this time ? ” 

“ Yes, ma’am,” said Mamie; “ you told me to wait 
until you came back.” 

That poor patient little thing was fairly swaying 
with weariness, but she never uttered a whimper. 

I will say for Sandy that he was sweet. He gath¬ 
ered her up in his arms and carried her to my library, 
and petted her and caressed her back to smiles. Jane 
brought the sewing-table and spread it before the fire, 
and while the doctor and I had tea, Mamie had her 
supper. I suppose, according to the theory of some 
educators, now, when she was thoroughly worn out 
and hungry, would have been the psychological mo¬ 
ment to ply her with prunes. But you will be pleased 
to hear that I did nothing of the sort, and that the 
doctor for once upheld my unscientific principles. 
Mamie had the most wonderful supper of her life, em- 


DEAR ENEMY 


150 

bellished with strawberry jam from my private jar and 
peppermints from Sandy’s pocket. We returned her 
to her mates happy and comforted, but still possessing 
that regrettable distaste for prunes. 

Portrait of in 



Oted ienf Chi (d 

Did you ever know anything more appalling than 
this soul-crushing unreasoning obedience which Mrs. 
Lippett so insistently fostered? It’s the orphan-asy¬ 
lum attitude toward life, and somehow I must crush 
it out. Initiative, responsibility, curiosity, inventive¬ 
ness, fight — oh dear! I wish the doctor had a serum 
for injecting all these useful virtures into an orphan’s 
circulation. 

Later. 

I wish you’d come back to New York. I’ve ap¬ 
pointed you press-agent for this institution, and we 



DEAR ENEMY 


151 

need some of your floweriest writing immediately. 
There are seven tots here crying to be adopted, and 
it ’s your business to advertise them. 

Little Gertrude is cross-eyed, but dear and affection¬ 
ate and generous. Can’t you write her up so persua¬ 
sively that some loving family will be willing to take 
her even if she isn’t beautiful? Her eyes can be 
operated on when she’s older; but if it were a cross 
disposition she had, no surgeon in the world could 
remove that. The child knows there is something 
missing, though she has never seen a live parent in her 
life. She holds up her arms persuasively to every per¬ 
son who passes. Put in all the pathos you are capable 
of, and see if you can’t fetch her a mother and father. 

Maybe you can get one of the New York papers to 
run a Sunday-feature article about a lot of different 
children. I ’ll send some photographs. You remem¬ 
ber what a lot of responses that “ Smiling Joe ” pic¬ 
ture brought for the Sea Breeze people ? I can furnish 
equally taking portraits of Laughing Lou and Gurgling 
Gertrude and Kicking Karl if you will just add the 
literary touch. 

And do find me some sports who are not afraid of 
heredity. This wanting every child to come from one 
of the first families of Virginia is getting tiresome. 

Yours, as usual, 


Sallie. 



Friday. 


My dear , dear Judy: 

Such an upheaval! I ’ve discharged the cook and 
the housekeeper, and in delicate language conveyed 
the impression to our grammar teacher that she need n’t 
come back next year. But, oh, if I could only dis¬ 
charge the Honorable Cy! 

I must tell you what happened this morning. Our 
trustee, who has had a dangerous illness, is now dan¬ 
gerously well again, and dropped in to pay a neigh¬ 
borly call. Punch was occupying a rug on my library 
floor, virtuously engaged with building-blocks. I am 
separating him from the other kindergarten children, 
and trying the Montess'ori method of a private rug and 
no nervous distraction. I was flattering myself that 
it was working well; his vocabulary of late has become 
almost prudish. 

After half an hour’s desultory visit, the Hon. Cy 
rose to go. As the door closed behind him (I am at 
least thankful the child waited for that), Punch raised 
his appealing brown eyes to mine and murmured, with 
a confiding smile: 

“ Gee! ain’t he got de hell of a mug? ” 

If you know a kind Christian family where I can 
152 


DEAR ENEMX 153 

place out a sweet little five-year boy, please communi¬ 
cate at once with 

S. McBride, 
Sup’t John Grier Home. 


Dear Pendletons: 

I’ve never known anything like you two snails. 
You ’ve only just reached Washington, and I have had 
my suit-case packed for days, ready to spend a reju¬ 
venating week-end chez vous. Please hurry! I’ve 
languished in this asylum atmosphere as long as is hu¬ 
manely* possible. I shall gasp and die if I don’t get a 
change. 

Yours, 

on the point of suffocation, 

S. McB. 

p.s. Drop a card to Gordon Hallock, telling him, you 
are there. He will be charmed to put himself and 
the Capitol at your disposal. I know that Jervis 
does n’t like him, but Jervis ought to get over his base¬ 
less prejudices against politicians. Who knows? I 
may be entering politics myself some day. 



My dear Judy: 

We do receive the most amazing presents from our 
friends and benefactors. Listen to this. Last week 
Mr. Wilton J. Leverett (I quote from his card) ran 
over a broken bottle outside our gate, and came in to 
visit the institution while his chauffeur was mending 
the tire. Betsy showed him about. He took an in¬ 
telligent interest in everything he saw, particularly our 
new camps. That is an exhibit which appeals to men. 
He ended by removing his coat, and playing base-ball 
with two tribes of Indians. After an hour and a half 
he suddenly looked at his watch, begged for a glass of 
water, and bowed himself off. 

We had entirely forgotten the episode until this aft¬ 
ernoon, when the expressman drove up to the door 
with a present for the John Grier Home from the 
chemical laboratories of Wilton J. Leverett. It was 
a barrel — well, anyway, a good sized keg — full of 
liquid green soap! 

Did I tell you that the seeds for our garden came 
from Washington? A polite present from Gordon 
Hallock and the U. S. Government. As an example 
of what the past regime did not accomplish, Martin 
SchladerMtz, who has spent three years on this pseudo¬ 
farm, knew no more than to dig a grave two feet deep 
and bury his lettuce seeds! 

154 


DEAR ENEMY 


155 


Oh, you can’t imagine the number of fields in which 
we need making over; but of course you, of all people, 
can imagine. Little by little I am getting my eyes 
wide open, and things that just looked funny to me at 
first, now — oh dear! It’s very disillusionizing. 
Every funny thing that comes up seems to have a little 
tragedy wrapped inside it. 

Just at present we are paying anxious attention to 
our manners — not orphan-asylum manners, but danc- 

DcVT\cna£| >$e fyoo( 

Manners 



ing-school manners. There is to be nothing Uriah 
Heepish about our attitude toward the world. The 
little girls make courtesies when they shake hands, and 






DEAR ENEMY 


*56 

the boys remove caps and rise when a lady stands, and 
push in chairs at the table. (Tommy Woolsey shot 
Sadie Kate into her soup yesterday, to the glee of all 
observers except Sadie, who is an independent young 
damsel and doesn’t care for these useless masculine 
attentions.) At first the boys were inclined to jeer, 
but after observing the politeness of their hero, Percy 
de Forest Witherspoon, they have come up to the mark 
like little gentlemen. 

Punch is paying a call this morning. For the last 
half-hour, while I have been busily scratching away 
to you, he has been established in the window-seat, 
quietly and undestructively engaged with colored pen¬ 
cils. Betsy, en passant, just dropped a kiss upon his 
nose. 

“ Aw, gwan! ” said Punch, blushing quite pink, and 
wiping off the caress with a fine show of masculine in¬ 
difference. But I notice he has resumed work upon 
his red-and-green landscape with heightened ardor and 
an attempt at whistling. We ’ll succeed yet in con¬ 
quering that young man’s temper. 


Tuesday. 

The doctor is in a very grumbly mood to-day. He 
called just as the children were marching in to dinner, 
whereupon he marched, too, and sampled their food, 
and, oh, my dear! the potatoes were scorched! And 
such a clishmaclaver as that man made! It is the first 


DEAR ENEMY 


157 


time the potatoes ever have been scorched, and you 
know that scorching sometimes happens in the best of 
families. But you would think from Sandy’s language 



that the cook had scorched them on purpose, in accord¬ 
ance with my orders. 

As I have told you before, I could do very nicely 
without Sandy. 

Wednesday. 

Yesterday being a wonderful sunny day, Betsy and 
I turned our backs upon duty and motored to the very 















DEAR ENEMY 


158 

fancy home of some friends of hers, where we had 
tea in an Italian garden. Punch and Sadie Kate had 
been such good children all day that at the last mo¬ 
ment we telephoned for permission to include them, 
too. 

“Yes, indeed, do bring the little dears/’ was the 
enthusiastic response. 

But the choice of Punch and Sadie Kate was a mis¬ 
take. We ought to have taken Mamie Prout, who 
has demonstrated her ability to sit. I shall spare you 
the details of our visit; the climax was reached when 
Punch went gold-fishing in the bottom of the swim¬ 
ming-pool. Our host pulled him out by an agitated 
leg, and the child returned to the asylum swathed in 
that gentleman’s rose-colored bath-robe. 

What do you think? Dr. Robin MacRae, in a con¬ 
trite mood for having been so intensely disagreeable 
yesterday, has just invited Betsy and me to take supper 
in his olive-green house next Sunday evening at seven 
o’clock in order to look at some microscopic slides. 
The entertainment, I believe, is to consist of a scarlet- 
fever culture, some alcoholic tissue, and a tubercular 
gland. These social attentions bore him excessively; 
but he realizes that if he is to have free scope in apply¬ 
ing his theories to the institution he must be a little 
polite to its superintendent. 

I have just read this letter over, and I must admit 
that it skips lightly from topic to topic. But though it 
may not contain news of any great moment, I trust you 


DEAR ENEMY 


159 

will realize that its writing has consumed every vacant 
minute during the last three days. 

I am, 

Most fully occupied, 
Sallie McBride. 

p.s. A blessed woman came this morning and said 
she would take a child for the summer-—one of the 
sickest, weakest, neediest babies I could give her. She 
had just lost her husband, and wanted something hard 
to do. Is n’t that really very touching ? 


Saturday afternoon. 


(Dear Judy and Jervis: 

Brother Jimmie (we are very alliterative!), spurred 
on by sundry begging letters from me, has at last sent 
us a present; but he picked it out himself. 

We have a monkey! His name is Java. 

The children no longer hear the school-bell ring. 
On the day the creature came, this entire institution 
formed in line and filed past and shook his paw. Poor 
Sing’s nose is out of joint. I have to pay to have 
him washed. 

Sadie Kate is developing into my private secretary. 
I have her answer the thank-you letters for the institu¬ 
tion, and her literary style is making a hit among 
our benefactors. She invariably calls out a second 
gift. I had hitherto believed that the Kilcoyne family 
sprang from the wild west of Ireland, but I begin to 
suspect that their source was nearer Blarney Castle. 
You can see from the inclosed copy of the letter she 
sent to Jimmie what a persuasive pen the young per¬ 
son has. I trust that, in this case at least, it will not 
bear the fruit that she suggests. 


160 


Dear Mr. Jimie 

We thank you very much for the lovly monkey 
you give. We name him java because that’s a warm 
iland across the ocian where he was born up in a nest 
like a bird only big the doctor told us. 

The first day he come every boy and girl shook 
his hand and said good morning java his hand feels 
funny he holds so tite. I was afraid to touch him 
but now I let him sit on my shoulder and put his arms 
around my kneck if he wants to. He makes a funny 
noise that sounds like swering and gets mad when his 
tale is puled. 

We love him dearly and we love you two. 

The next time you have to give a present, please 
send an elifant. Well I guess Ill stop. 

Yours truly 

Sadie Kate Kilcoyne. 




DEAR ENEMY 


162 

Percy de Forest Witherspoon is still faithful to his 
little followers, though I am so afraid he will get tired 
that I urge him to take frequent vacations. He has 
not only been faithful himself, but has brought in re¬ 
cruits. He has large social connections in the neigh¬ 
borhood, and last Saturday evening he introduced two 
friends, nice men who sat around the camp-fire and 
swapped hunting-stories. 

One of them was just back from around the world, 
and told hair-raising anecdotes of the head-hunters 
of. Sarawak, a narrow pink country on the top of 
Borneo. My little braves pant to grow up and get to 
Sarawak, and go out on the war-path after head¬ 
hunters. Every encyclopedia in this institution has 
been consulted, and there is n’t a boy here who cannot 
tell you the history, manners, climate, flora, and fungi 
of Borneo. I only wish Mr. Witherspoon would in¬ 
troduce friends who had been head-hunting in England, 
France, and Germany, countries not quite so chic as 
Sarawak, but more useful for general culture. 

We have a new cook, the fourth since my reign 
began. I have n’t bothered you with my cooking 
troubles, but institutions don’t escape any more than 
families. The last is a negro woman, a big, fat, smil¬ 
ing, chocolate-colored creature from Souf Ca’lina. 
And ever since she came on honey dew we’ve fed! 
Her name is — what do you guess? Sallie, if you 
please. I suggested that she change it. 

“ Sho, Miss, I’s had dat name Sallie longer ’n you, 


DEAR ENEMY 


163 

an’ I could n’t get used nohow to answerin’ up pert- 
like when you sings out ‘ Mollie! ’ Seems like Sallie 
jest b’longs to me.” 

So “ Sallie ” she remains; but at least there is no 
danger of our getting our letters mixed, for her last 
name is nothing so plebeian as McBride. It’s Johns¬ 
ton-Washington, with a hyphen? 

Sunday. 

Our favorite game of late is.finding pet names for 
Sandy. His austere presence lends itself to caricature. 
We have just originated a new batch. The “ Laird 
o’ Cockpen ” is Percy’s choice. 

The Laird o’ Cockpen he’s proud and he’s great; 

His mind is ta’en up wi’ the things of the state. 

Miss Snaith disgustedly calls him “ that man,” and 
Betsy refers to him (in his absence) as “ Dr. Cod- 
Liver.” My present favorite is “ Macphairson Cion 
Glocketty Angus McClan.” But for real poetic feel¬ 
ing, Sadie Kate beats us all. She calls him “ Mister 
Someday Soon.” I don’t believe that the doctor ever 
dropped into verse but once in his life, but every child 
in this institution knows that one poem by heart. 

Someday soon something nice is going to happen; 

Be a good little girl and take this hint: 

Swallow with a smile your cod-liver ile, 

And the first thing you know you will have a peppermint. 


164 


DEAR ENEMY 


It’s this evening that Betsy and I attend his supper- 
party, and I confess that we are looking forward to 
seeing the interior of his gloomy mansion with gleeful 
eagerness. He never talks about himself or his past 
or anybody connected with himself. He appears to be 
an isolated figure standing on a pedestal labeled 
SCIENCE, without a glimmer of any ordinary 
affections or emotions or human frailties except tem¬ 
per. Betsy and I are simply eaten up with curiosity 
to know what sort of past he came out of; but just 
let us get inside his house, and to our detective senses 
it will tell its own story. So long as the portal was 
guarded by a fierce McGurk, we had despaired of ever 
effecting an entrance; but now, behold! The door has 
opened of its own accord. 

To be continued . 


S. McB. 


Monday. 


Dear Judy: 

We attended the doctor’s supper-party last night, 
Betsy and Mr. Witherspoon and I. It turned out a 
passably cheerful occasion, though I will say that it 
began under heavy auspices. 

His house on the inside is all that the outside prom¬ 
ises; never in my life have I seen such an interior as 
that man’s dining-room. The walls and carpets and 
lambrequins are a heavy dark green. A black-marble 
mantelpiece shelters a few smoking black coals. The 
furniture is as nearly black as furniture comes. The 
decorations are two steel engravings in shiny black 
frames — the “ Monarch of the Glen,” and the “ Stag 
at Bay.” 

We tried hard to be light and sparkling, but it was 
like eating supper in the family vault. Mrs. McGurk, 
in black alpaca with a black silk apron, clumped around 
the table, passing cold, heavy things to eat, with a' 
step so firm that she rattled the silver in the sideboard 1 
drawers. Her nose was up, and her mouth was down. 
She clearly does not approve of the master’s enter¬ 
taining, and she wishes to discourage all guests from 
ever accepting again. 

Sandy sort of dimly knows that there is something 
the matter with his house, and in order to brighten 
it up a bit in honor of his guests, he had purchased 
165 



DEAR ENEMY 


166 

flowers,— dozens of them,— the most exquisite pink 
Killarney roses and red and yellow tulips. The Mc- 
Gurk had wedged them all together as tight as they 
would fit into a peacock-blue jardiniere, and plumped 
it down in the center of the table. The thing was as 
big as a bushel-basket. Betsy and I nearly forgot 
our manners when we saw that centerpiece; but the 
doctor seemed so innocently pleased at having obtained 
a bright note in his dining-room that we suppressed 
our amusement and complimented him warmly upon 
his happy color scheme. 

The moment supper was over, we hastened with re¬ 
lief to his own part of the house, where the McGurk’s 
influence does not penetrate. No one in a cleaning 
capacity ever enters either his library or office or labora¬ 
tory except Llewelyn, a short, wiry, bow-legged Welsh¬ 
man, who combines to a unique degree the qualities 
of chambermaid and chauffeur. 

The library, though not the most cheerful room I 
have ever seen, still, for a man’s house, is not so bad 
,— books all around from floor to ceiling, with the 
overflow in piles on floor and table and mantelpiece; 
half a dozen abysmal leather chairs and a rug or so, 
with another black marble mantelpiece, but this time 
containing a crackling wood fire. By way of bric-a- 
brac, he has a stuffed pelican and a crane with a frog 
in its mojxth ? also a racoon sitting on a log, and a var¬ 
nished tarpon. A faint suggestion of iodoform floats 
in the air. 


DEAR ENEMY 


i6y 

The doctor made the coffee himself in a French 
machine, and we dismissed his housekeeper from our 
spirits. He really did do his best to be a thoughtful 
host and I have to report that the word “ insanity ” 
was not once mentioned. It seems that Sandy, in his 
moments of relaxation, is a fisherman; he and Percy 
began swapping stories of salmon and trout, and he 
finally got out his case of fishing-flies, and gallantly 
presented Betsy and me with a “ silver doctor ” and a 
“ Jack Scott ” out of which to make hat-pins. Then 
the conversation wandered to sport on the Scotch 
moors, and he told about one time when he was lost, 
and spent the night out in the heather. There is no 
doubt about it, Sandy’s heart is in the highlands. 

I am afraid that Betsy and I have wronged him. 
Though it is hard to relinquish the interesting idea, 
he may not, after all, have committed a crime. We 
are now leaning to the belief that he was crossed in 
love. 

It’s really horrid of me to make fun of poor Sandy, 
‘ for, despite his stern bleakness of disposition, he’s a 
pathetic figure of a man. Think of coming home after 
an anxious day’s round to eat a solitary dinner in that 
grim dining-room! 

Do you suppose it would cheer him up a little if I 
should send my company of artists to paint a frieze of 
rabbits around the wall? 

With love, as usual, 

Sallie. 


Dear Judy: 

Are n’t you ever coming back to New York ? Please 
hurry! I need a new hat, and am desirous of shop¬ 
ping for it on Fifth Avenue, not on Water Street. 
Mrs. Gruby, our best milliner, does not believe in 
slavishly following Paris fashions; she originates her 
own styles. But three years ago, as a great conces¬ 
sion to convention, she did make a tour of the New 
York shops, and is still creating models on the uplift 
of that visit. 

Also, besides my own hat, I must buy 113 hats for 
my children, to say nothing of shoes and knickerbock¬ 
ers and shirts and hair-ribbons and stockings and gar¬ 
ters. It’s quite a task to keep a little family like mine 
decently clothed. 

Did you get that bit letter I wrote you last week ? 
You never had the grace to mention it in yours of 
Thursday, and it was seventeen pages long, and took 
me days to write. 

Yours truly, 

S. McBride. 

p.s. Why don’t you tell me some news about Gordon? 
Have you seen him, and did he mention me? Is he 
running after any of those pretty Southern girls that 
Washington is so full of? You know that I want to 
hear. Why must you be so beastly uncommunicative ? 

168 


Tuesday, 4:27 p.m. 


Dear Judy: 

Your telegram came two minutes ago by telephone. 

Yes, thank you, I shall be delighted to arrive at 
5 149 on Thursday afternoon. And don’t make any 
engagements for that evening, please, as I intend to 
sit up until midnight talking John Grier gossip with 
you and the president. 

Friday and Saturday and Monday I shall have to 
devote to shopping. Oh, yes, you ’re right; I already 
possess more clothes than any jail-bird needs, but when 
spring comes, I must have new plumage. As it is, I 
wear an evening gown every night just to wear them 
out — no, not entirely that; to make myself believe 
that I’m still an ordinary girl despite this extraordi¬ 
nary life that you have pushed me into. 

The Hon. Cy found me yesterday arrayed in a Nile- 
green crape (Jane’s creation, though it looked Pari¬ 
sian). He was quite puzzled when he found I was n’t 
going to a ball. I invited him to stay and dine with 
me, and he accepted! We got on very affably. He 
expands over his dinner. Food appears to agree with 
him. If there’s any Bernard Shaw in New York 
just now, I believe that I might spare a couple of hours 
Saturday afternoon for a matinee. G. B. S.’s dialogue 
would afford such a life-giving contrast to the Hon. 
Cy’s. 


170 


DEAR ENEMY 


There’s no use writing any more; 
talk. 


Addio. 


I ’ll wait and 


Sallie. 


p.s. OH dear! just as I had begun to catch glimmer¬ 
ings of niceness in Sandy, he broke out again and 
was abominable. We unfortunately have five cases of 
measles in this institution, and the man’s manner sug¬ 
gests that Miss Snaith and I gave the measles to the 
children on purpose to make him trouble. There are 
many days when I should be willing to accept our doc¬ 
tor’s resignation. 


Wednesday. 

Dear Enemy: 

Your brief and dignified note of yesterday is at 
hand. I have never known anybody whose literary 
style resembled so exactly his spoken word. 

And you will be greatly obliged if I will drop my 
absurd fashion of calling you “ Enemy ” ? I will drop 
my absurd fashion of calling you Enemy just as soon, 
as you drop your absurd fashion of getting angry and 
abusive and insulting the moment any little thing goes 
wrong. 

I am leaving to-morrow afternoon to spend four 
days in New York. 

Yours truly, 

S. McBride. 


Chez the Pendletons, New York. 
My dear Enemy: 

I trust that this note will find you in a more affable 
frame of mind than when I saw you last. I emphat¬ 
ically repeat that it was not due to the carelessness of 
the superintendent of our institution that those two 
new cases of measles crept in, but rather to the un¬ 
fortunate anatomy of our old-fashioned building, 
which does not permit of the proper isolation of con¬ 
tagious cases. 

As you did not deign to visit us yesterday morn¬ 
ing before I left, I could not offer any parting sug¬ 
gestions. I therefore write to ask that you cast your 
critical eye upon Mamie Prout. She is covered all 
over with little red spots which may be measles, though 
I am hoping not. Mamie spots very easily. 

I return to prison life next Monday at six o’clock. 

Yours truly, 

S. McBride. 

p.s. I trust you will pardon my mentioning it, but 
you are not the kind of doctor that I admire. I like 
them chubby and round and smiling. 

171 


The John Grier Home, 


June 9. 

Dear Judy: 

You are an awful family for an impressionable 
young girl to visit. How can you expect me to come 
back and settle down contentedly to institution life 
after witnessing such a happy picture of domestic con¬ 
cord as the Pendleton household presents ? 

All the way back in the train, instead of occupying 
myself with the two novels, four magazines, and one 
box of chocolates that your husband thoughtfully pro¬ 
vided, I spent the time in a mental review of the young 
men of my acquaintance to see if I couldn’t discover 
one as nice as Jervis. I did! (A little nicer, I think.) 
From this day on he is the marked-down victim, the 
destined prey. 

I shall hate to give up the asylum after getting so 
excited over it, but unless you are willing to move it 
to the capital, I don’t see any alternative. 

The train was awfully late. We sat and smoked 
on a siding while two accommodations and a freight 
dashed past. I think we must have broken something, 
and had to tinker up our engine. The conductor was 
soothing, but uncommunicative. 

It was 7:30 when I descended, the only passenger, 
172 


DEAR ENEMY 


173 


at our insignificant station in the pitch darkness and 
rain, without an umbrella, and wearing that precious 
new hat. No Turnfelt to meet me; not even a station 
hack. To be sure, I had n’t telegraphed the exact time 
of my arrival, but, still, I did feel rather neglected. I 
had sort of vaguely expected all one hundred and thir¬ 
teen to be drawn up by the platform, scattering flowers 
and singing songs of welcome. Just as I was telling 
the station man that I would watch his telegraph in¬ 
strument while he ran across to the corner saloon and 
telephoned for a vehicle, there came whirling around 
the corner two big search-lights aimed straight at me. 
They stopped nine inches before running me down, and 
I heard Sandy’s voice saying: 

“ Weel, weel, Miss Sallie McBride! I’m thinking 
it’s ower time you came back to tak’ the bit bairns off 
my hands.” 

That man had come three times to meet me on the 
off chance of the train’s getting in some time. He 
tucked me and my new hat and bags and books and 
chocolates all in under his waterproof flap, and we 
splashed off. Really, I felt as if I was getting back 
home again, and quite sad at the thought of ever hav¬ 
ing to leave. Mentally, you see, I had already resigned 
and packed and gone. The mere idea that you are 
not in a place for the rest of your life gives you an 
awfully unstable feeling. That’s why trial marriages 
would never work. You’ve got to feel you ’re in a 
thing irrevocably and forever in order to buckle down 


174 


DEAR ENEMY 


and really put your whole mind into making it a suc¬ 
cess. 

It’s astounding how much news can accrue in four 
days. Sandy just could n’t talk fast enough to tell me 
everything I wanted to hear. Among other items, I 
learned that Sadie Kate had spent two days in the in¬ 
firmary, her malady being, according to the doctor’s 
diagnosis, half a jar of gooseberry jam and Heaven 
knows how many doughnuts. Her work had been 
changed during my absence to dish-washing in the offi¬ 
cers’ pantry, and the juxtaposition of so many exotic 
luxuries was too much for her fragile virtue. 

Also, our colored cook Sallie and our colored useful 
man Noah have entered upon a war of extermination. 
The original trouble was over a little matter of kin¬ 
dling, augmented by a pail of hot water that Sallie 
threw out of the window with, for a woman, unusual 
accuracy of aim. You can see what a rare character 
the head of an orphan-asylum must have. She has to 
combine the qualities of a baby nurse and a police 
magistrate.,. 

The doctor had told only the half when we reached 
the house, and as he had not yet dined, owing to meet¬ 
ing me three times, I begged him to accept the hospital¬ 
ity of the John Grier. I would get Betsy and Mr. 
Witherspoon, and we would hold an executive meeting, 
and settle all our neglected businesses. 

Sandy accepted with flattering promptness. He 
likes to dine outside of the family vault. 


DEAR ENEMY 


175 


But Betsy, I found, had dashed home to greet a vis¬ 
iting grandparent, and Percy was playing bridge in the 
village. It’s seldom the young thing gets out of an 
evening, and I ’m glad for him to have a little cheerful 
diversion. 

So it ended in the doctor’s and my dining tete-a-tete 
on a hastily improvised dinner,— it was then close 
upon eight, and our normal dinner hour is 6130,— but 
it was such an improvised dinner as I am sure Mrs. Mc- 
Gurk never served him. Sallie, wishing to impress me 
with her invaluableness, did her absolutely Southern 
best And after dinner we had coffee before the fire 
in my comfortable blue library, while the wind howled 
outside and the shutters banged. 

We passed a most cordial and intimate evening. 
For the first time since our acquaintance I struck a new 
note in the man. There really is something attractive 
about him when you once come to know him. But the 
process of knowing him requires time and tact. He’s 
no’ very gleg at the uptak. I’ve never seen such a 
tantalizingly inexplicable person. All the time I’m 
talking to him I feel as though behind his straight line 
of a mouth and his half-shut eyes there were banked 
fires smoldering inside. Are you sure he has n’t com¬ 
mitted a crime? He does manage to convey the de¬ 
licious feeling that he has. 

And I must add that Sandy’s not so bad a talker 
when he lets himself go. He has the entire volume of 
Scotch literature at his tongue’s end. 


176 


DEAR ENEMY 


“ Little kens the auld wife as she sits by the fire 
what the wind is doing on Hurly-Burly-Swire,” he ob¬ 
served as a specially fierce blast drove the rain against 
the window. That sounds pat, does n’t it ? I have n’t, 
though, the remotest idea what it means. And listen 
to this: between cups of coffee (he drinks far too much 
coffee for a sensible medical man) he casually let fall 
the news that his family knew the R. L. S. family per¬ 
sonally, and used to take supper at 17 Heriot Row! 
I tended him assiduously for the rest of the evening 
in a 

Did you once see Shelley plain, 

And did he stop and speak to you? 

frame of mind. 

When I started this letter, I had no intention of fill¬ 
ing it with a description of the recently excavated 
charms of Robin MacRae; it’s just by way of remorse¬ 
ful apology. He was so nice and companionable last 
night that I have been going about to-day feeling con¬ 
science-smitten at the thought of how mercilessly I 
made fun of him to you and Jervis. I really didn’t 
mean quite all of the impolite things that I said. 
About once a month the man is sweet and tractable and 
-engaging. 

Punch has just been paying a social call, and during 
the course of it he lost three little toadlings an inch 
long. Sadie Kate recovered one of them from under 
.the bookcase, but the other two hopped away; and I’m 


DEAR ENEMY 


177 


so afraid they’ve taken sanctuary in my bed! I do 
wish that mice and snakes and toads and angleworms 
were not so portable. You never know what is going 
on in a perfectly respectable-looking child’s pocket. 



I had a beautiful visit in Casa: Pendleton. Don’t 
forget your promise to return it soon. 

Yours as ever, 

Sallie. 

p.s. I left a pair of pale-blue bedroom slippers under 
the bed. Will you please have Mary wrap them up 
and mail them to me ? And hold her hand while she 
writes the address. She spelt my name on the place- 
cards “ Mackbird.” 



Tuesday. 


Dear Enemy: 

As I told you, I left an application for an accom¬ 
plished nurse with the employment bureau of New 
[York. 


Wanted! A nurse maid with an ample lap suitable 
for the accommodation of seventeen babies at once. 



178 






r> •' 

DEAR ENEMY 


X-0 




179 


We couldn’t keep a baby from sliding off her lap 
unless we fastened him firmly with safety-pins. 

Please give Sadie Kate the magazine. I ’ll read it 
to-night and return it to-morrow. 

Was there ever a more docile and obedient pupil than 

S. McBride? 




Thursday. 


My dear Judy: 

I Ve been spending the last three days busily getting 
under way all those latest innovations that we planned 
in New York. Your word is law. A public cooky- 
jar has been established. 

Also, the eighty play-boxes have been ordered. It 
is a wonderful idea, having a private box for each 
child, where he can store up his treasures. The 
ownership of a little personal property will help 
develop them into responsible citizens. I ought to 
have thought of it myself, but for some reason the 
idea didn’t come. Poor Judy! You have inside 
knowledge of the longings of their little hearts that I 
shall never be able to achieve, not with all the sym¬ 
pathy I can muster. 

We are doing our best to run this institution with 
as few discommoding rules as possible, but in regard 
to those play-boxes there is one point on which I shall 
have to be firm. The children may not keep in them 
mice or toads or angleworms. 

I can’t tell you how pleased I am that Betsy’s salary 
is to be raised, and that we are to keep her perma¬ 
nently. But the Hon. Cy Wykoff deprecates the step. 
He has been making inquiries, and he finds that her 
180 


DEAR ENEMY 181 

people are perfectly able to take care of her without 
any salary. 

“ You don’t furnish legal advice for nothing,” say 
I to him. “ Why should she furnish her trained serv¬ 
ices for nothing? ” 

“ This is charitable work.” 

“ Then work which is undertaken for your own good 
should be paid, but work which is undertaken for the 
public good should not be paid ? ” 

“ Fiddlesticks! ” says he. “ She’s a woman, and her 
family ought to support her.” 

This opened up vistas of argument which I did not 
care to enter with the Hon. Cy, so I asked him whether 
he thought it would be nicer to have a real lawn or 
hay on the slope that leads to the gate. He likes to be 
consulted, and I pamper him as much as possible in all 
unessential details. You see, I am following Sandy’s 
canny advice: “ Trustees are like fiddle-strings; they 
maunna be screwed ower tight. Humor the mon, but 
gang your ain gait.” Oh, the tact that this asylum is 
teaching me! I should make a wonderful politician’s 
wife. 


Thursday night. 

You will be interested to hear that I have tempo¬ 
rarily placed out Punch with two charming spinsters 
who have long been tottering on the brink of a child. 
They finally came last week, and said they would like 


DEAR ENEMY 


182 

to try one for a month to see what the sensation felt 
like. 

They wanted, of course, a pretty ornament, dressed 
in pink and white and descended from the May-flower. 
I told them that any one could bring up a daughter of 
the Mayflower to be an ornament to society, but the 
real feat was to bring up a son of an Italian organ- 
grinder and an Irish washerwoman. And I offered 
Punch. That Neapolitan heredity of his, aristically 
speaking, may turn out a glorious mixture, if the right 
environment comes along to choke out all the weeds. 

I put it up to them as a sporting proposition, and 
they were game. They have agreed to take him for 
one month and concentrate upon his remaking all their 
years of conserved force, to the end that he may be fit 
for adoption in some moral family. They both have 
a sense of humor and accomplishing characters, or I 
should never have dared to propose it. And really I 
believe it’s going to be the one way of taming our 
young fire-eater. They will furnish the affection and 
caresses and attention that in his whole abused little 
life he has never had. 

They live in a fascinating old house with an Italian 
garden, and furnishings selected from the whole round 
world. It does seem like sacrilege to turn that de¬ 
structive child loose in such a collection of treasures. 
But he has n’t broken anything here for more than a 
month, and I believe that the Italian in him will re¬ 
spond to all that beauty. 


DEAR ENEMY 


183 

I warned them that they must not shrink from any 
profanity that might issue from his pretty baby lips. 

He departed last night in a very fancy automobile, 
and maybe I was n’t glad to say good-by to our dis¬ 
reputable young man! He has absorbed just about 
half of my energy. 


Friday. 

The pendant arrived this morning. Many thanks! 
But you really ought not to have given me another; a 
hostess cannot be held accountable for all the things 
that careless guests lose in her house. It is far too 
pretty for my cfotfn. I am thinking of having my nose 
pierced, Cingalese fashion, and wearing my new jewel 
where it will really show. 

I must tell you that our Percy is putting some good 
constructive work into this asylum. He has founded 
the John Grier Bank, and has worked out all the details 
in a very professional and businesslike fashion, entirely 
incomprehensible to my non-mathematical mind. All 
of the older children possess properly printed check¬ 
books, and they are each to be paid five dollars a week 
for their services, such as going to school and accom¬ 
plishing housework. They are then to pay the 
institution (by check) for their board and clothes, 
which will consume their five dollars. It looks like a 
vicious circle, but it’s really very educative; they will 
comprehend the value of money before we dump them 


DEAR ENEMY 


184 

into a mercenary world. Those who are particularly 
good in lessons or work will receive an extra recom¬ 
pense. My head aches at the thought of the book¬ 
keeping, but Percy waves that aside as a mere bagatelle. 
It is to be accomplished by our prize arithmeticians,: 
and will train them for positions of trust. If Jervis ' 
hears of any opening for bank officials, let me know; 

I shall have a well-trained president, cashier, and pay¬ 
ing-teller ready to be placed by this time next year. 

Saturday. 

Our doctor does n’t like to be called “ Enemy.” 
It hurts his feelings or his dignity or something of the 
sort; but since I will persist, despite his expostulations, 
he has finally retaliated with a nickname for me. He 
calls me “ Miss Sally Lunn,” and is in a glow of pride 
at having achieved such an imaginative flight. 

He and I have invented a new pastime: he talks 
Scotch, and I answer in Irish. Our conversations run 
like this: 

“ Good afthernoon to ye, docther. An’ how’s yer ' 
health the day ? ” 

“ Verra weel, verra week And how gaes it wi’ a’ 
the bairns? ” 

“ Shure, they ’re all av thim doin’ foin.” 

“ I’m gey glad to hear it. This saft weather is hard 
on folk. There’s muckle sickness aboot the kintra.” 

“ Hiven be praised it has not lighted here! But sit 


DEAR ENEMY 185 

down, docther, an’ make yersilf at home. Will ye be 
afther havin’ a cup o’ tay? ” 

“ Hoot, woman! I would na fiae ypu fash yoursel’, 
but a wee drap tea winna coom amiss.” 

“ Whist! It’s no thruble at all.” 

You may not think this a very dizzying excursion 
into frivolity; but I assure you, for one of Sandy’s 
dignity, it’s positively riotous. The man has been in 
a heavenly temper ever since I came back; not a single 
cross word. I am beginning to think I may reform 
him as well as Punch. 

This letter must be about long enough even for you; 
I’ve been writing it bit by bit for three days, whenever 
I happened to pass my desk. 

Yours as ever, 

Sallie. 

p.s. I don’t think much of your vaunted prescription 
for hair tonic. Either the druggist did n’t mix it 
right, or Jane did n’t apply it with discretion. I stuck 
to the pillow this morning. 


The John Grier Home, 

Saturday. ^ 

Dear Gordon: 

Your letter of Thursday is at hand, and extremely 
silly I consider it. Of course I am not trying to let 
you down easy; that is n’t my way. If I let you down 
at all, it will be suddenly and with an awful bump. 
But I honestly didn’t realize that it had been three 
weeks since I wrote. Please excuse! 

Also, my dear sir, I have to bring you to account. 
You were in New York last week, and you never ran 
up to see us. You thought we wouldn’t find it out, 
but we heard — and are insulted. 

Would you like an outline of my day’s activities? 
Wrote monthly report for trustees’ meeting. Audited 
accounts. Entertained agent of State Charities Aid 
Association for luncheon. Supervised children’s 
menus for next ten days. Dictated five letters to fam¬ 
ilies who have our children. Visited our little feeble¬ 
minded Loretta Higgins (pardon the reference; I 
know you don’t like me to mention the feeble-minded), 
who is being boarded out in a nice comfortable family, 
where she is learning to work. Came back to tea and 
a conference with the doctor about sending a child 
with tubercular glands to a sanatorium. Read an ar- 
186 


DEAR ENEMY 


187 

tide on cottage versus congregate system for housing 
dependent children. (We do need cottages! I wish 
you’d send us a few for a Christmas present.) And 
now at nine o’clock I’m sleepily beginning a letter to 
you. Do you know many young society girls who can 
point to such a useful day as that ? 

Oh, I forgot to say that I stole ten minutes from my 
accounts this morning to install a new cook. Our 
Sallie Washington-Johnston, who cooked fit for the 
angels, had a dreadful, dreadful temper and terrorized 
poor Noah, our super-excellent furnace-man, to the 
point of giving notice. We could n’t spare Noah. 
He’s more useful to the institution than its superin¬ 
tendent, and so Sallie Washington-Johnston is no more. 

When I asked the new cook her name, she replied, 
“ Ma name is Suzanne Estelle, but ma friends call me 
Pet.” Pet cooked the dinner to-night, but I must say 
that she lacks Sallie’s delicate touch. I am awfully 
disappointed that you did n’t visit us while Sallie was 
still here. You would have taken away an exalted 
opinion of my housekeeping. 

Drowsiness overcame me at that point, and it’s now 
two days later. 

Poor neglected Gordon! It has just occurred to me 
that you never got thanked for the modeling-clay 
which came two weeks ago, and it was such an unu¬ 
sually intelligent present that I should have telegraphed 
my appreciation. When I opened the box and saw all 


188 


DEAR ENEMY 


that nice messy putty stuff, I sat down on the spot and 
created a statue of Singapore. The children love it; 
and it is very good to have the handicraft side of their 
training encouraged. 

After a careful study of American history, I have 
determined that nothing is so valuable to a future 
president as an early obligatory unescapable perform¬ 
ance of chores. 

Therefore I have divided the daily work of this in¬ 
stitution into a hundred parcels, and the children ro¬ 
tate weekly through a succession of unaccustomed 
tasks. Of course they do everything badly, for just 
as they learn how, they progress to something new. 
It would be infinitely easier for us to follow Mrs. Lip- 
pett’s immoral custom of keeping each child sentenced 
for life to a well-learned routine; but when the tempta¬ 
tion assails me, I recall the dreary picture of Florence 
Henty, who polished the brass door-knobs of this in¬ 
stitution for seven years — and I sternly shove the 
children on. 

I get angry every time I think of Mrs. Lippett. She 
had exactly the point of view of a Tammany politician 
— no slightest sense of service to society; her only in¬ 
terest in the John Grier Home was to get a living out 
of it. 


Wednesday. 

What new branch of learning do you think I have 
introduced into my asylum ? Table manners! 


DEAR ENEMY 


189 

I never had any idea that it was such a lot of trouble 
to teach children how to eat and drink. Their favorite 
method is to put their mouths down to their mugs and 
lap their milk like kittens. Good manners are not 
merely snobbish ornaments, as Mrs. Lippett’s regime 
appeared to believe; they mean self-discipline and 
thought for others, and my children have got to learn 
them. 

That woman never allowed them to talk at their 
meals, and I am having the most dreadful time getting 
any conversation out of them above a frightened whis¬ 
per. So I have instituted the custom of the entire 
staff, myself included, sitting with them at the table, 
and directing the talk along cheerful and improving 
lines. Also I have established a small, very strict 
training-table, where the little dears, in relays, undergo 
a week of steady badgering. Our uplifting table con¬ 
versations run like this: 

“ Yes, Tom, Napoleon Bonaparte was a very great 
man — elbows off the table. He possessed a tremen¬ 
dous power of concentrating his mind on whatever he 
wanted to have; and that is the way to accomplish — 
don’t snatch, Susan; ask politely for the bread, and 
Carrie will pass it to you.— But he was an example 
of the fact that selfish thought just for oneself, with¬ 
out considering the lives of others, will come to disas¬ 
ter in the — Tom! Keep your mouth shut when you 
chew — and after the battle of Waterloo — let Sadie’s 
cooky alone — his fall was all the greater because—* 


190 


DEAR ENEMY 


Sadie Kate, you may leave the table. It makes no 
difference what he did. Under no provocation does a 
lady slap a gentleman.” 

Two more days have passed; this is the same kind 
of meandering letter I write to Judy. At least, my 
dear man, you can’t complain that I have n’t been 
thinking about you this week! I know you hate to be 
told all about the asylum, but I can’t help it, for it’s 
all I know. I don’t have five minutes a day to read 
the papers. The big outside world has dropped away. 
My interests all lie on the inside of this little iron in- 
closure. 

I am at present, 

S. McBride, 
Superintendent of the 
John Grier Home. 






Thursday. 


Dear Enemy: 

“ Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in.” Has n’t 
that a very philosophical, detached, Lord of the Uni¬ 
verse sound? It comes from Thoreau, whom I am 
assiduously reading at present. As you see, I have re¬ 
volted against your literature and taken to my own 
again. The last two evenings have been devoted to 
“ Walden,” a book as far removed as possible from the 
problems of the dependent child. 

Did you ever read old Henry David Thoreau ? You 
really ought; I think you’d find him a congenial soul. 
Listen to this: “ Society is commonly too cheap. We 

meet at very short intervals, not having had time to 
acquire any new value for each other. It would be 
better if there were but one habitation to a square mile, 
as where I live.” A pleasant, expansive, neeborlike 
man he must have been! He minds me in some ways 
o’ Sandy. 

This is to tell you that we have a placing-out agent 
visiting us. She is about to dispose of four chicks, 
one of them Thomas Kehoe. What do you think? 
Ought we to risk it? The place she has in mind for 
him is a farm in a no-license portion of Connecticut, 
where he will work hard for his board, and live in the 
farmer’s family. It sounds exactly the right thing, 


192 


DEAR ENEMY 


and we can’t keep him here forever; he ’ll have to be 
turned out some day into a world full of whisky. 

I’m sorry to tear .you away from that cheerful work 
on “ Dementia Precox,” but I’d be most obliged if 
you’d drop in here toward eight o’clock for a confer¬ 
ence with the agent. 


I am, as usual, 


S. McBride. 



June 17. 


My dear Judy: 

Betsy has perpetrated a most unconscionable trick 
upon a pair of adopting parents. They have traveled 
East from Ohio in their touring-car for the dual pur¬ 
pose of seeing the country and picking up a daughter. 
They appear to be the leading citizens of their town, 
whose name at the moment escapes me; but it’s a 
very important town. It has electric lights and gas, 
and Mr. Leading Citizen owns the controlling interest 
in both plants. With a wave of his hand he could 
plunge that entire town into darkness; but fortunately 
he’s a kind man, and won’t do anything so harsh, not 
even if they fail to reelect him mayor. He lives in a 
brick house with a slate roof and two towers, and has 
a deer and fountain and lots of nice shade-trees in the 
yard. (He carries its photograph in his pocket.) 
They are good-natured, generous, kind-hearted, smil¬ 
ing people, and a little fat; you can see what desirable 
parents they would make. 

Well, we had exactly the daughter of their dreams, 
only, as they came without giving us notice, she was 
dressed in a flannellet nightgown, and her face was 
dirty. They looked Caroline over, and were not im¬ 
pressed; but they thanked us politely, and said they 
193 


194 


DEAR ENEMY 


would bear her in mind. They wanted to visit the 
New York Orphanage before deciding. We knew well 
that, if they saw that superior assemblage of children, 
our poor little Caroline would never have a chance. 

Then Betsy rose to the emergency. She graciously 
invited them to motor over to her house for tea that 
afternoon and inspect one of our little wards who 
would be visiting her baby niece. Mr. and Mrs. Lead¬ 
ing Citizen do not know many people in the East, and 
they haven’t been receiving the invitations that they 
feel are their due; so they were quite innocently pleased 
at the prospect of a little social diversion. The mo¬ 
ment they had retired to the hotel for luncheon, Betsy 
called up her car, and rushed baby Caroline over to her 
house. She stuffed her into baby niece’s best pink-and- 
white embroidered frock, borrowed a hat of Irish lace, 
some pink socks and white slippers, and set her pic¬ 
turesquely upon the green lawn under a spreading 
beech-tree. A white-aproned nurse (borrowed also 
from baby niece) plied her with bread and milk and 
gaily colored toys. By the time prospective parents ar¬ 
rived, our Caroline, full of food and contentment, 
greeted them with cooes of delight. From the moment 
their eyes fell upon her they were ravished with desire. 
Not a suspicion crossed their unobservant minds that 
this sweet little rosebud was the child of the morning. 
And so, a few formalities having been complied with, 
it really looks as though baby Caroline would live in 
the Towers and grow into a leading citizen. 


DEAR ENEMY 


195 


I must really get to work, without any further de¬ 
lay, upon the burning question of new clothes for our 
girls. 

With the highest esteem, I am, 

D’r Ma’am, 

Y’r most ob’d’t and h’mble serv’t, 

Sal. McBride. 


June 19th. 


My dearest Judy: 

Listen to the grandest innovation of all, and one that 
will delight your heart. 

NO MORE BLUE GINGHAM! 

Feeling that this aristocratic neighborhood of coun¬ 
try estates might contain valuable food for our asylum, 
I have of late been moving in the village social circles, 
and at a luncheon yesterday I dug out a beautiful and 
charming widow who wears delectable, flowing gowns 
that she designs herself. She confided to me that she 
would have loved to have been a dressmaker, if she had 
only been born with a needle in her mouth instead of a 
golden spoon. She says she never sees a pretty girl 
badly dressed but she longs to take her in hand and 
make her over. Did you ever hear anything so apro¬ 
pos? From the moment she opened her lips she was a 
marked man. 

“ I can show you fifty-nine badly dressed girls,” said 
I to her, “ and you have got to come back with me and 
plan their new clothes and make them beautiful.” 

She expostulated; but in vain. I led her out to her 
automobile, shoved her in, and murmured, “ John Grier 
Home ” to the chauffeur. The first inmate our eyes 
fell upon was Sadie Kate, just fresh, I judge, from 
196 


DEAR ENEMY 


197 


hugging the molasses-barrel; and a shocking spectacle 
she was for any esthetically minded person. In addi¬ 
tion to the stickiness, one stocking was coming down, 
her pinafore was buttoned crookedly, and she had lost 
a hair-ribbon. But — as always — completely at ease, 
she welcomed us with a cheery grin, and offered the 
lady a sticky paw. 

“ Now,” said I, in triumph, “ you see how much we 
need you. What can you do to make Sadie Kate beau¬ 
tiful?” 

“ Wash her,” said Mrs. Livermore. 

Sadie Kate was marched to my bathroom. When 
the scrubbing was finished and the hair strained back 
and the stocking restored to seemly heights, I returned 
her for a second inspection — a perfectly normal little 
orphan. Mrs. Livermore turned her from side to side, 
and studied her long and earnestly. 

Sadie Kate by nature is a beauty, a wild, dark, Gip- 
syish little colleen; she lpoks fresh from the wind¬ 
swept moors of Connemara. But, oh, we have man¬ 
aged to rob her of her birthright with this awful insti¬ 
tution uniform! 

After five minutes’ silent contemplation, Mrs. Liver 
more raised her eyes to mine. 

“ Yes, my dear, you need me.” 

And then and there we formed our plans. She is to 
head the committee on CLOTHES. She is to 
choose three friends to help her ; and they, with the two 
dozen best sewers among the girls and our sewing- 



I9 8 DEAR ENEMY 

teacher and five sewing-machines, are going to make 
over the looks of this institution. And the charity is 
all on our side. We are supplying Mrs. Livermore 
with the profession that Providence robbed her of. 
Was n’t it clever of me to find her? I woke this morn¬ 
ing at dawn and crowed! 



Lots more news,— I could run into a second volume, 
— but I am going to send this letter to town by Mr. 
Witherspoon, who, in a very high collar and the black¬ 
est of evening clothes, is on the point of departure for 
a barn dance at the country club. I told him to pick 
out the nicest girls he danced with to come and tell sto¬ 
ries to my children. 

It is dreadful, the scheming person I am getting to 









DEAR ENEMY 


199 

be. All the time I am talking to any one, I am silently 
thinking, “ What use can you be to my asylum ? ” 
There is grave danger that this present superintend¬ 
ent will become so interested in her job that she will 
never want to leave. I sometimes picture her a white- 
l haired old lady, propelled about the building in a 
wheeled chair, but still tenaciously superintending her 
fourth generation of orphans. 

Please discharge her before that day! 

Yours, 

Sallie. 


f 


Friday. 


Dear Judy: 

Yesterday morning, without the slightest warning, 
a station hack drove up to the door and disgorged upon 
the steps two men, two little boys, a baby girl, a rock¬ 
ing-horse, and a Teddy bear, and then drove off! 

The men were artists, and the little ones were chil¬ 
dren of another artist, dead three weeks ago. They 
had brought the mites to us because they thought 
“ John Grier ” sounded solid and respectable, and not 
like a public institution. It had never entered their 
unbusinesslike heads that any formality is necessary 
about placing a child in an asylum. 

I explained that we were full, but they seemed so 
stranded and aghast, that I told them to sit down while 
I advised them what to do. So the chicks were sent 
to the nursery, with a recommendation of bread and 
milk, while I listened to their history. Those artists 
had a fatally literary touch, or maybe it was just the 
sound of the baby girl’s laugh, but, anyway, before 
they had finished, the babes were ours. 

Never have I seen a sunnier creature than the little 
Alfegra (we don’t often get such fancy names or such 
fancy children). She is three years old, is lisping 
funny baby-talk and bubbling with laughter. The 
tragedy she has just emerged from has never touched 


200 


DEAR ENEMY 


201 


her. But Don and Clifford, sturdy little lads of five 
and seven, are already solemn-eyed and frightened at 
the hardness of life. 

Their mother was a kindergarten teacher who mar- 
Lried an artist on a capital of enthusiasm and a few 
* tubes of paint. His friends say that he had talent, 
but of course he had to throw it away to pay the milk¬ 
man. They lived in a haphazard fashion in a rickety 
old studio, cooking behind screens, the babies sleeping 
on shelves. 

But there seems to have been a very happy side to 
it — a great deal of love and many friends, all more 
or less poor, but artistic and congenial and high-think¬ 
ing. The little lads, in their gentleness and fineness, 
show that phase of their upbringing. They have an 
air which many of my children, despite all the good 
manners I can pour into them, will forever lack. 

The mother died in the hospital a few days after 
Allegra’s birth, and the father struggled on for two 
years, caring for his brood and painting like mad — 
advertisements, anything — to keep a roof over their 
heads. 

He died in St. Vincent's three weeks ago,— over¬ 
work, worry, pneumonia. His friends rallied about 
the babies, sold such of the studio fittings as had es¬ 
caped pawning, paid off the debts, and looked about 
for the best asylum they could find. And, Heaven 
save them! they hit upon us! 

Well, I kept the two artists for luncheon,— nice 


202 


DEAR ENEMY 


creatures in soft hats and Windsor ties, and looking 
pretty frayed themselves,— and then started them back 
to New York with the promise that I would give the 
little family my most parental attention. 

So here they are, one little mite in the nursery, two 
in the kindergarten-room, four big packing-cases full 
of canvases in the cellar, and a trunk in the store-room 
with the letters of their father and mother. And a 
look in their faces, an intangible spiritual something, 
that is their heritage. 

I can’t get them out of my mind. All night long I 
was planning their future. The boys are easy; they 
have already been graduated from college, Mr. Pen¬ 
dleton assisting, and are pursuing honorable business 
careers. But Allegra I don’t know about; I can’t 
think what to wish for the child. Of course the nor¬ 
mal thing to wish for any sweet little girl is that two 
kind foster-parents will come along to take the place 
of the real parents that Fate has robbed her of; but in 
this case it would be cruel to steal her away from her 
brothers. Their love for the baby is pitiful. You see, 
they have brought her up. The only time I ever hear 
them laugh is when she has done something funny. 
The poor little fellows miss their father horribly. I 
found Don, the five-year-old one, sobbing in his crib 
last night because he couldn’t say good night to 
“ daddy.” 

But Allegra is true to her name, the happiest young 
miss of three I have ever seen. The poor father man- 


DEAR ENEMY 


203 

aged well by her, and she, little ingrate, has already 
forgotten that she has lost him. 

Whatever can I do with these little ones? I think 
and think and think about them. I can’t place them 
out, and it does seem too awful to bring them up here; 
for as good as we are going to be when we get our¬ 
selves made over, still, after all, we are an institution, 
and our inmates are just little incubator chicks. They 
don’t get the individual, fussy care that only an old hen 
can give. 

There is a lot of interesting news that I might have 
been telling you, but my new little family has driven 
everything out of my mind. 

Bairns are certain joy, but nae sma’ care. 

Yours ever, 

Sallie. 

p.s.> Don’t forget that you are coming to visit me next 
week. 

p.s. 11. The doctor, who is ordinarily so scientific and 
unsentimental, has fallen in love with Allegra. He 
didn’t so much as glance at her tonsils; he simply 
picked her up in his arms and hugged her. Oh, she is 
a little witch! Whatever is to become of her? 


June 22. 


'My dear Judy: 

I may report that you need no longer worry as to 
our inadequate fire protection. The doctor and Mr. 
Witherspoon have been giving the matter their gravest 
attention, and no game yet devised has proved so en¬ 
tertaining and destructive as our fire-drill. 

The children all retire to their beds and plunge into 
alert slumber. Fire-alarm sounds. They spring up 
and into their shoes, snatch the top blanket from their 
beds, wrap it around their imaginary night-clothes, fall 
into line, and trot to the hall and stairs. 

Our seventeen little tots in the nursery are each in 
charge of an Indian, and are bundled out, shrieking 
with delight. The remaining Indians, so long as there 
is no danger of the roof falling, devote themselves to 
salvage. On the occasion of our first drill, Percy in 
command, the contents of a dozen clothes-lockers were 
dumped into sheets and hurled out of the windows. 
I usurped dictatorship just in time to keep the pillows 
and mattresses from following. We spent hours re¬ 
sorting those clothes, while Percy and the doctor, hav¬ 
ing lost all interest, strolled up to the camp with their 
pipes. 


204 


DEAR ENEMY 


205 


Our future drills are to be a touch less realistic^ 
However, I am pleased to tell you that, under the able 
direction of Fire-chief Witherspoon, we emptied the 
building in six minutes and twenty-eight seconds. 

That baby Allegra has fairy blood in her veins. 

Never did this institution harbor such a child, barring 
one that Jervis and I know of. She has completely 
subjugated the doctor. Instead of going about his vis¬ 
its like a sober medical man, he comes down to my 
library hand in hand with Allegra, and for half an 
hour at a time crawls about on a rug, pretending he’s 
a horse, while the bonnie wee lassie sits on his back 
and kicks. 

You know, I am thinking of putting a card in the 
paper: 

Characters neatly remodeled. 

S. McBride. 

Sandy dropped in two nights ago to have a bit of 
conversation with Betsy and me, and he was frivolous. 

He made three jokes, and he sat down at the piano and 
sang some old Scotch, “ My luve’s like a red, red 
rose,” and “ Come under my plaid ie,” and “ Wha ’s at 
the window ? Wha ? Wha ? ” not in the least educa¬ 
tional, and then danced a few steps of the strathspey! 

I sat and beamed upon my handiwork, for lF’slrue, 

I’ve done it all through my frivolous example and the 
books I ’ve given him and the introducing of such 
lightsome companions as Jimmie and Percy and Gof’ ' ,5^ 


206 


DEAR ENEMY 


don Hallock. If I have a few more months in which 
to work, I shall get the man human. He has given up 
purple ties, and at my tactful suggestion has adopted 
a suit of gray. You have no idea how it sets him off. 
He will be quite distinguished-looking as soon as I can 
make him stop carrying bulgy things in his pockets. 

Good-by; and remember that we ’re expecting you 
on Friday. 

Sallie. 

p.s.i Here is a picture of Allegra, taken by Mr. With¬ 
erspoon. Is n’t she a love ? Her present clothes do 
not enhance her beauty, but in the course of a few 
weeks she will move into a pink smocked frock. 

Wednesday, June 24, 10 A. m. 
Mrs. Jervis Pendleton. 

Madam: 

Your letter is at hand, stating that you cannot visit 
me on Friday per promise, because your husband has 
business that keeps him in town. What clishmaclaver 
is this! Has it come to such a pass that you can’t 
leave him for two days ? 

I did not let 113 babies interfere with my visit to 
you, and I see no reason why you should let one hus¬ 
band interfere with your visit to me. I shall meet the 
Berkshire express on Friday as agreed. 


S. McBride. 


June 30. 


My dear Judy: 

That was a very flying visit you paid us; but for all 
small favors we are grateful. I am awfully pleased 
that you were so delighted with the way things are 
going, and I can’t wait for Jervis and the architect to 
get up here and really begin a fundamental ripping-up. 

You know, I had the queerest feeling all the time 
that you were here. I can’t make it seem true that 
you, my dear, wonderful Judy, were actually brought 
up in this institution, and know from the bitter inside 
what these little tots need. Sometimes the tragedy of 
your childhood fills me with an anger that makes me 
want to roll up my sleeves and fight the whole world 
and force it into making itself over into a place more 
fit for children to live in. That Scotch-Irish ancestry 
of mine seems to have deposited a tremendous amount 
of fight in my character. 

If you had started me with a modern asylum, 
equipped with nice, clean, hygienic cottages and every¬ 
thing in running order, I could n’t have stood the mo¬ 
notony of its perfect clockwork. It’s the sight of so 
many things crying to be done that makes it possible 
for me to stay. Sometimes, I must confess, I wake up 
in the morning and listen to these institution noises, 
207 


208 


DEAR ENEMY 


and sniff this institution air, and long for the happy, 
care-free life that by rights is mine. 

You, my dear witch, cast a spell over me, and I 
came; but often in the night watches your spell wears 
thin, and I start the day with the burning decision to 
run away from ths John Grier Home. But I postpone 
starting until after breakfast. And as I issue into the 
corridor, one of these pathetic tots runs to meet me, 
and shyly slips a warm, crumpled little fist into my 
hand, and looks up with wide baby eyes, mutely ask¬ 
ing for a little petting, and I snatch him up and hug 
him; and then, as I look over his shoulder at the other 
forlorn little mites, I long to take all 113 into my arms 
and love them into happiness. There is something 
hypnotic about this working with children. Struggle 
as you may, it gets you in the end. 

Your visit seems to have left me in a broadly philo¬ 
sophical frame of mind; but I really have one or two 
bits of news that I might convey. The new frocks are 
marching along, and, oh, but they are going to be 
sweet! Mrs. Livermore was entranced with those 
part'i-colored bales of cotton cloth you sent,— you 
should see our workroom, with it all scattered about, 
— and when I think of sixty little girls, attired in pink 
and blue and yellow and lavender, romping upon our 
lawn of a sunny day, I feel that we should have a sup¬ 
ply of smoked eye-glasses to offer visitors. Of course 
you know that some of those brilliant fabrics are going 
to be very fadeable and impractical; but Mrs. Liver- 


DEAR ENEMY 


209 


more is as bad as you — she does n't give a hang. 
She ’ll make a second and a third set if necessary. 
DOWN WITH CHECKED GINGHAM! 

I am glad you liked our doctor. Of course we re¬ 
serve the right to say anything about him we choose, 
but our feelings would be awfully hurt if anybody else 
should make fun of him. 

He and I are still superintending each other’s read¬ 
ing. Last week he appeared with Herbert Spencer’s 
“ System of Synthetic Philosophy ” for me to glance 
at; I gratefully accepted it, and gave him in return the 
“ Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff.” Do you remember 
in college how we used to enrich our daily speech with 
quotations from Marie? Well, Sandy took her home 
and read her painstakingly and thoughtfully. 

“ Yes,” he acknowledged to-day when he came to 
report, “ it is a truthful record of a certain kind of 
morbid, egotistical personality that unfortunately does 
exist; but I can’t understand why you care to read it; 
for, thank God! Sally Lunn, you and Bash have n’t 
anything in common.” 

That’s the nearest to a compliment he ever came, 
and I feel extremely flattered. As to poor Marie, he 
refers to her as “ Bash ” because he can’t pronounce 
her name, and is too disdainful to try. 

We have a child here, the daughter of a chorus-girl, 
and she is a conceited, selfish, vain, posing, morbid, 
lying little minx, but she has eyelashes! Sandy has 
taken the most violent dislike to that child; and since 



210 


DEAR ENEMY 


reading poor Marie’s diary, he has found a new com¬ 
prehensive adjective for summing up all of her dis¬ 
tressing qualities. He calls her bashy, and dismisses 
her. 

Good-by and come again. 

Sallie. 


p.s. My children show a distressing tendency to 
draw out their entire bank-accounts to buy candy. 






















Tuesday night. 


My dear Judy: 

What do you think Sandy has done now? He has 
gone off on a pleasure-trip to that psychopathic insti¬ 
tution whose head alienist visited us a month or so 
ago. Did you ever know anything like the man ? He 
is fascinated by insane people, and can’t let them alone. 

When I asked for some parting medical instructions, 
he replied: 

“ Feed a cowld and hunger a colic and put nae faith 
in doctors.” 

With that advice, and a few bottles of cod-liver oil 
we are left to our own devices. I feel very free and 
adventurous. Perhaps you had better run up here 
again, as there’s no telling what joyous upheaval I 
may accomplish when out from under Sandy’s damp¬ 
ening influence. 

S. 


211 


The John Grier Home, 


Friday. 

Dear Enemy: 

Here I stay lashed to the mast, while you run about 
the country disporting yourself with insane people. 
And just as I was thinking that I had nicely cured you 
of this morbid predilection for psychopathic institu¬ 
tions! It’s very disappointing. You had seemed al-* 
most human of late. 

May I ask how long you are intending to stay? 
You had permission to go for two days, and you ’ve 
already been away four. Charlie Martin fell out of a 
cherry-tree yesterday and cut his head open, and we 
were driven to calling in a foreign doctor. Five 
stitches. Patient doing well. But we don’t like to 
depend on strangers. I wouldn’t say a word if you 
.were away on legitimate business, but youJsfiow very 
well that, after associating with melancholics for a 
week, you will come back home in a dreadful state of 
gloom, dead-sure that humanity is going to the dogs; 
and upon me will fall the burden of getting you de¬ 
cently cheerful again. 

Do leave those insane people to their delusions, and 


212 



DEAR ENEMY 


213 

come back to the John Grier Home, which needs 
you. 


I am most fervent’ 

Your friend and servant, 


S. McB. 

p.s. Don’t you admire that poetical ending? It was 
borrowed from Robert Burns, whose works I am read¬ 
ing assiduously as a compliment to a Scotch friend. 


July 6. 


Dear Judy: 

That doctor man is still away. No word; just dis¬ 
appeared into space. I don’t know whether he is ever 
coming back or not, but we seem to be running very 
happily without him. 

I lunched yesterday chez the two kind ladies who 
have taken our Punch to their hearts. The young man 
seems to be very much at home. He took me by the 
hand, and did the honors of the garden, presenting me 
with the bluebell of my choice. At luncheon the Eng¬ 
lish butler lifted him into his chair and tied on his bib 
with as much manner as though he were serving a 
prince of the blood. The butler has lately come from 
the household of the Earl of Durham, Punch from a 
cellar in Houston Street. It was a very uplifting spec¬ 
tacle. 

My hostesses entertained me afterward with ex¬ 
cerpts from their table conversations of the last two 
weeks. (I wonder the butler has n’t given notice; he 
looked like a respectable man.) If nothing more 
comes of it, at least Punch has furnished them with 
funny stories for the rest of their lives. One of them 
is even thinking of writing a book. “ At least,” says 
she, wiping hysterical tears from her eyes, “ we have 
lived! ” 


214 


DEAR ENEMY 


215 


The Hon. Cy dropped in at 6:30 last night, and 
found me in an evening gown, starting for a dinner 
at Mrs. Livermore’s house. He mildly observed that 
Mrs. Lippett did not aspire to be a society-leader, but 
saved her energy for her work. You know I’m not 
vindictive, but I never look at that man without wish¬ 
ing he were at the bottom of the duck-pond, securely 
anchored to a rock. Otherwise he’d pop up and float. 

Singapore respectfully salutes you, and is very glad 
that you can’t see him as he now appears. A shock¬ 
ing calamity has befallen his good looks. Some bad 
child — and I don’t think she’s a boy — has clipped 
that poor beastie in spots, until he looks like a mangy, 
moth-eaten checkerboard. No one can imagine who 
did it. Sadie Kate is very handy with the scissors, 
but she is also handy with an alibi! During the time 
when the clipping presumably occurred, she was occu¬ 
pying a stool in the corner of the school-room with 
her face to the wall, as twenty-eight children can tes¬ 
tify. However, it has become Sadie Kate’s daily duty 
to treat those spots with your hair tonic. 

I am, as usual, 


Sallie. 


216 


DEAR ENEMY 



p.s. This is a recent portrait of the Hon. Cy drawn 
from life. The man, in some respects, is a fascinat¬ 
ing talker ; he makes gestures with his nose. 


Thursday evening. 


Dear Judy: 

Sandy is back after a ten-days’ absence,— no ex¬ 
planations,— and plunged deep into gloom. He re¬ 
sents our amiable efforts to cheer him up, and will 
have nothing to do with any of us except baby Alle- 
gra. He took her to his house for supper to-night and 
never brought her back until half-past seven, a scan¬ 
dalous hour for a young miss of three. I don’t know 
what to make of our doctor; he grows more incom¬ 
prehensible every day. 

But Percy, now, is an open-minded, confiding young 
man. He has just been making a dinner-call (he is 
very punctilious in all social matters), and our entire 
conversation was devoted to the girl in Detroit. He 
is lonely and likes to talk about her; and the wonderful 
things he says! I hope that Miss Detroit is worthy 
of all this fine affection, but I’m afraid. He fetched 
out a leather case from the innermost recesses of his 
waistcoat and, reverently unwrapping two layers of 
tissue-paper, showed me the photograph of a silly lit¬ 
tle thing, all eyes and ear-rings and fuzzy hair. I did 
my best to appear congratulatory, but my heart shut 
up out of pity for the poor boy’s future. 

217 


218 


DEAR ENEMY 


Isn’t it funny how the nicest men often choose the 
worst wives, and the nicest women the worst hus¬ 
bands? Their very niceness, I suppose, makes them 
blind and unsuspicious. 

You know, the most interesting pursuit in the world 
is studying character. I believe I was meant to be a 
novelist; people fascinate me — until I know them 
thoroughly. Percy and the doctor form a most en¬ 
gaging contrast. You always know at any moment 
what that nice young man is thinking about; he is 
written like a primer in big type and one-syllable 
words. But the doctor! He might as well be written 
in Chinese so far as legibility goes. You have heard 
of people with a dual nature; well, Sandy possesses a 
triple one. Usually he’s scientific and as hard as 
granite, but occasionally I suspect him of being quite 
a sentimental person underneath his official casing. 
For days at a time he will be patient and kind and help¬ 
ful, and I begin to like him; then without any warning 
an untamed wild man swells up from the innermost 
depths, and — oh, dear! the creature’s impossible. 

I always suspect that sometime in the past he has 
suffered a terrible hurt, and that he is still brooding 
over the memory of it. All the time he is talking you 
have the uncomfortable feeling that in the far back 
corners of his mind he is thinking something else. 
But this may be merely my romantic interpretation of 
an uncommonly bad temper. In any case, he’s baf¬ 
fling. 


DEAR ENEMY 


219 



We have been waiting for a week for a fine windy 
afternoon, and this is it. My children are enjoying 
“ kite-day,” a leaf taken from Japan. All of the big- 
enough boys and most of the girls are spread over 




220 


DEAR ENEMY 


“ Knowltop ” (that high, rocky sheep-pasture which 
joins us on the east) flying kites made by themselves. 

I had a dreadful time coaxing the crusty old gentle¬ 
man who owns the estate into granting permission. 
He doesn’t like orphans, he says, and if he once lets 
them get a start in his grounds, the place will be 
infested with them forever. You would think, to 
hear him talk, that orphans were a pernicious kind of 
beetle. 

But after half an hour’s persuasive talking on my 
part, he grudgingly made us free of his sheep-pasture 
for two hours, provided we did n’t step foot into the 
cow-pasture over the lane, and came home promptly 
when our time was up. To insure the sanctity of his 
cow-pasture, Mr. Knowltop has sent his gardener and 
chauffeur and two grooms to patrol its boundaries 
while the flying is on. The children are still at it, and 
are having a wonderful adventure racing over that 
windy height and getting tangled up in one another’s 
strings. When they come panting back they are to 
have a surprise in the shape of ginger cookies and lem¬ 
onade. 

These pitiful little youngsters with their old faces! 
It’s a difficult task to make them young, but I 
believe I’m accomplishing it. And it really is fun to 
feel you’ re doing something positive for the good of 
the world. If I don’t fight hard against it, you’ll be 
accomplishing your purpose of turning me into a use¬ 
ful person. The social excitements of Worcester al- 


DEAR ENEMY 


221 


most seem tame before the engrossing interest of 113 
live, warm, wriggling little orphans. 

Yours with love, 

Sallie. 

p.s. I believe, to be accurate, that it’s 107 children I 
possess this afternoon. 


'Dear Judy: 

f This being Sunday and a beautiful blossoming day, 
with a warm wind blowing, I sat at my window with 
the “ Hygiene of the Nervous System ” (Sandy’s lat¬ 
est contribution to my mental needs) open in my lap, 
and my eyes on the prospect without. “ Thank 
Heaven! ” thought I, “ that this institution was so 
commandingly placed that at least we can look out? 
over the cast-iron wall which shuts us in.” 

I was feeling very cooped-up and imprisoned and 
like an orphan myself; so I decided that my own nerv¬ 
ous system required fresh air and exercise and adven¬ 
ture. Straight before me ran that white ribbon of 
road that dips into the valley and up over the hills on 
the other side. Ever since I came I have longed to 
follow it to the top and find out what lies beyond those 
hills. Poor Judy! I dare say that very same longing 
enveloped your childhood. If any one of my little 
chicks ever stands by the window and looks across the 
valley to the hills and asks, “ What’s over there ? ” I 
shall telephone for a motor-car. 

But to-day my chicks were all piously engaged with 
their little souls, I the only wanderer at heart. I 
changed my silken Sunday gown for homespun, plan¬ 
ning meanwhile a means to get to the top of those hills. 


222 


DEAR ENEMY 223 

Then I went to the telephone and brazenly called up 

5 ° 5 - 

“ Good afternoon, Mrs. McGurk,” said I, very 
sweet. “ May I be speaking with Dr. MacRae? ” 

“ Howld the wire,” said she, very short. 

“ Afternoon, Doctor,” said I to him. “ Have ye, 
by chance, any dying patients who live on the top o’ 
the hills beyant ? ” 

“ I have not, thank the Lord! ” 

“ ’T is a pity,” said I, disappointed. “ And what 
are ye afther doin’ with yerself the day? ” 

“ I am reading the ‘ Origin of Species.’ ” 

“ Shut it up; it’s not fit for Sunday. And tell me 
now, is yer motor-car iled and ready to go ? ” 

“ It is af your disposal. Are you wanting me to 
take some orphans for a ride ? ” 

“ Just one who’s sufferin’ from a nervous system. 
She’s taken a fixed idea that she must get to the top o’ 
the hills.” 

“ My car is a grand climber. In fifteen minutes —” 
“ Wait! ” said I. “ Bring with ye a frying-pan 
that’s a decent size for two. There’s nothing in my 
kitchen smaller than a cart-wheel. And ask Mrs. Mc¬ 
Gurk can ye stay out for supper.” 

So I packed in a basket a jar of bacon and some eggs 
and muffins and ginger Cookies, with hot coffee in the 
thermos-bottle, and was waiting on the steps when 
Sandy chugged up with his automobile and frying-pan. 
We really had a beautiful adventure, and he enjoyed 


224 


DEAR ENEMY 


the sensation of running away exactly as much as I. 
Not once did I let him mention insanity. I made him 
look at the wide stretches of meadow and the lines of 
pollard willows backed by billowing hills, and sniff the 
air, and listen to the cawing crows and the tinkle of 
cow-bells and the gurgling of the river. And we 
talked — oh, about a million things far removed from 
our asylum. I made him throw away the idea that 
he is a scientist, and pretend to be a boy. You will 
scarcely credit the assertion, but he succeeded — more 
or less. He did pull off one or two really boyish 
pranks. Sandy is not yet out of his thirties, and, 
mercy! that is too early to be grown up. 

We camped on a bluff overlooking our view, gath¬ 
ered some driftwood, built a fire, and cooked the 
nicest supper — a sprinkling of burnt stick in our fried 
eggs, but charcoal’s healthy. Then, when Sandy had 
finished his pipe and “ the sun was setting in its wonted 
west/’ we packed up and coasted back home. 

He says it was the nicest afternoon he has had in 
years, and, poor deluded man of science, I actually be¬ 
lieve it’s true. His olive-green home is so uncom¬ 
fortable and dreary and uninspiring that I don’t won¬ 
der he drowns his troubles in books. Just as soon as 
I can find a nice comfortable house-mother to put in 
charge, I am going to plot for the dismissal of Maggie 
McGurk, though I foresee that she will be even harder 
than Sterry to pry from her moorings. 

Please don’t draw the conclusion that I am becoming 


DEAR ENEMY 


225 


unduly interested in our bad-tempered doctor, for I’m 
not. It’s just that he leads such a comfortless life 
that I sometimes long to pat him on the head and tell 
him to cheer up; the world ’s full of sunshine, and some 
of it’s for him — just as I long to comfort my hundred 
and seven orphans; so much and no more. 

I am sure that I had some real news to tell you, but 
it has completely gone out of my head. The rush of 
fresh air has made me sleepy. It ’s half-past nine, and 
I bid you good night. 

S. 

p.s. Gordon Hallock has evaporated into thin air. 
Not a word for three weeks; no candy or stuffed ani¬ 
mals or fokimentoes of any description. What on 
earth do you suppose has become of that attentive 
young man ? 


July 13- 


Dearest Judy: 

Hark to the glad tidings! 

This being the thirty-first day of Punch’s month, I 
telephoned to his two patronesses, as nominated in the 
bond, to arrange for his return. I was met by an in¬ 
dignant refusal. Give up their sweet little volcano 
just as they are getting it trained not to belch forth 
fire ? They are outraged that I can make such an un¬ 
grateful request. Punch has accepted their invitation 
to spend the summer. 

The dressmaking is still going on; you should hear 
the machines whir and the tongues clatter in the sew¬ 
ing-room. Our most cowed, apathetic, spiritless little 
orphan cheers up and takes an interest in life when 
she hears that she is to possess three perfectly private 
dresses of her own, and each a different color, chosen 
by herself. And you should see how it encourages 
their sewing ability; even the little ten-year-olds are 
bursting into seamstresses. I wish I could devise an 
equally effective way to make them take an interest in 
cooking. But our kitchen is extremely uneducative; 
you know how hampering it is to one’s enthusiasm to 
have to prepare a bushel of potatoes at once. 

I think you’ve heard me mention the fact that I 
226 


DEAR ENEMY 


should like to divide up my kiddies into ten nice little 
families, with a nice comfortable house-mother over 
each? If we just had ten picturesque cottages to put 
them in, with flowers in the front yard and rabbits and 
kittens and puppies and chickens in the back, we should 
be a perfectly presentable institution, and wouldn’t 
be ashamed to have these charity experts come visit¬ 
ing us.' ~ " J (f 



Thursday. 


I started this letter three days ago, was interrupted 
to talk to a potential philanthropist (fifty tickets to the 
circus), and have not had time to pick up my pen 
since. Betsy has been in Philadelphia for three days, 
being a bridesmaid for a miserable cousin. I hope 
that no more of her family are thinking of getting mar¬ 
ried, for it’s most upsetting to the J. G. H. 

While there, she investigated a family who had ap¬ 
plied for a child. Of course we haven’t a proper in¬ 
vestigating plant, but once in a while, when a family 
drops right into our arms, we do like to put the busi¬ 
ness through. As a usual thing, we work with the 
State Charities’ Aid Association. They have a lot of 
trained agents traveling about the State, keeping in 
touch with families who are willing to take children, 
and with asylums that have them to give. Since they 
are willing to work for us, there is no slightest use 
in our going to the expense of peddling our own ba- 


228 


DEAR ENEMY 


bies. And I do want to place out as many as are 
available, for I firmly believe that a private home is 
the best thing for the child, provided, of course, that 
we are very fussy about the character of the homes we 
choose. I don’t require rich foster-parents, but I do 
require kind, loving, intelligent parents. This time I 
think Betsy has landed a gem of a family. The child 
is not yet delivered or the papers signed, and of course 
there is always danger that they may give a sudden 
flop, and splash back into the water. 

Ask Jervis if he ever heard of J. F. Bretland of 
Philadelphia. He seems to move in financial circles. 
The first I ever heard of him was a letter addressed to 
the “ Supt. John Grier Home, Dear Sir,”— a curt, 
typewritten, businesslike letter, from an awfully busi¬ 
nesslike lawyer, saying that his wife had determined 
to adopt a baby girl of attractive appearance and good 
health between the ages of two and three years. The 
child must be an orphan of American stock, with un¬ 
impeachable heredity, and no relatives to interfere. 
Could I furnish one as required and oblige, yours truly, 
J. F. Bretland? 

By way of reference he mentioned “ Bradstreets.” 
Did you ever hear of anything so funny? You would 
think he was opening a charge-account at a nursery, 
and inclosing an order from our seed catalogue. 

We began our usual investigation by mailing a ref¬ 
erence-blank to a clergyman in Germantown, where 
the J. F. B.’s reside. 


DEAR ENEMY 


229 


Does he own any property? 

Does he pay his bills ? 

Is he kind to animals? 

Does he attend church? 

Does he quarrel with his. wife? And a dozen other 
impertinent questions. 

We evidently picked a clergyman with a sense of 
humor. Instead of answering in laborious detail, he 
wrote up and down and across the sheet, “ I wish 
they’d adopt me!” 

This looked promising, so B. Kindred obligingly 
dashed out to Germantown as soon as the wedding 
breakfast was over. She is developing the most phe¬ 
nomenal detective instinct. In the course of a social 
call she can absorb from the chairs and tables a fam¬ 
ily’s entire moral history. 

She returned from Germantown bursting with en¬ 
thusiastic details. 

Mr. J. F. Bretland is a wealthy and influential citi¬ 
zen, cordially loved by his friends and deeply hated by 
his enemies (discharged employees, who do not hesi¬ 
tate to say that he is a har-rd man). He is a little 
shaky in his attendance at church, but his wife seems 
regular, and he gives money. 

She is a charming, kindly, cultivated gentlewoman, 
just out of a sanatorium after a year of nervous pros¬ 
tration. The doctor says that what she needs is some 
strong interest in life, and advises adopting a child. 
She has always longed to do it, but her hard husband 


230 


DEAR ENEMY 


has stubbornly refused. But finally, as always, it is 
the gentle, persistent wife who has triumphed, and 
hard husband has been forced to give in. Waiving 
his own natural preference for a boy, he wrote, as 
above, the usual request for a blue-eyed girl. 

Mrs. Bretland, with the firm intention of taking a 
child, has been reading up for years, and there is no 
detail of infant dietetics that she does not know. She 
has a sunny nursery, with a southwestern exposure, all 
ready. And a closet full of surreptitiously gathered 
dolls! She has made the clothes for them herself,— 
she showed them to Betsy with the greatest pride,— so 
you can understand the necessity for a girl. 

She has just heard of an excellent English trained 
nurse that she can secure, but she is n’t sure but that 
it would be better to start with a French nurse, so that 
the child can learn the language before her vocal cords 
are set. Also, she was extremely interested when she 
heard that Betsy was a college woman. She could n’t 
make up her mind whether to send the baby to college 
or not. What was Betsy’s honest opinion? If the 
child were Betsy’s own daughter, would Betsy send her 
to college? 

All this would be funny if it weren’t so pathetic; 
but really I can’t get away from the picture of that 
poor lonely woman sewing those doll-clothes for the 
little unknown girl that she was n’t sure she could have. 
She lost her own two babies years ago, or, rather, she 
never had them; they were never alive. 


DEAR ENEMY 


231 


You can see what a good home it ’s going to be. 
There’s lots of love waiting for the little mite, and that 
is better than all the wealth which, in this case, goes 
along. 

But the problem now is to find the child, and that 
isn’t easy; the J. F. Bretlands are so abominably ex¬ 
plicit in their requirements. I have just the baby boy 
to give them; but with that closetful of dolls, he is im¬ 
possible. Little Florence won’t do — one tenacious 
parent living. I ’ve a wide variety of foreigners with 
liquid brown eyes — won’t do at all. Mrs. Bretland 
is a blonde, and daughter must resemble her. I have 
several sweet little mites with unspeakable heredity, 
but the Bretlands want six generations of church- 
attending grandparents, with a colonial governor at the 
top. Also I have a darling little curly-headed girl 
|(and curls are getting rarer and rarer), but illegiti¬ 
mate. And that seems to be an unsurmountable bar¬ 
rier in the eyes of adopting parents, though, as a mat¬ 
ter of fact, it makes no slightest difference in the child. 
However, she won’t do; the Bretlands hold out sternly 
for a marriage-certificate. 

There remains just one child out of all these 
one hundred and seven that appears available. Our 
little Sophie’s father and mother were killed in a rail¬ 
road accident, and the only reason she was n’t killed 
was because they had just left her in a hospital to get 
an abscess cut out of her throat. She comes from 
good common American stock, irreproachable and un- 


232 


DEAR ENEMY 


interesting in every way. She's a washed-out, spirit¬ 
less, whiney little thing. The doctor has been pouring 
her full of his favorite cod-liver oil and spinach, but he 
can’t get any cheerfulness into her. 

However, individual love and care does accomplish 
wonders in institution children, and she may bloom 
into something rare and beautiful after a few months’ 
transplanting. So I yesterday wrote a glowing ac¬ 
count of her immaculate family history to J. F. Bret- 
land, offering to deliver her in Germantown. 

This morning I received aj:elegram from J. F. B. 
Not at all! He does not purpose to buy any daughter 
sight unseen. He will come and inspect the child in 
person at three o’clock on Wednesday next. 

Oh dear, if he shouldn’t like her! We are now 
bending all our energies toward enhancing that child’s 
beauty — like a pup bound for the dog show. Do you 
think it would be awfully immoral if I rouged her 
cheeks a suspicion? She is too young to pick up the 
habit. 

Heavens! what a letter! A million pages written 
without a break. You can see where my heart is. 
I’m as excited over little Sophie’s settling in life as 
though she were my own darling daughter. 

Respectful regards to the president. 


Sal. McB.. 


Dear Gordon: 

That was an obnoxious, beastly, low-down trick not 
to send me a cheering line for four weeks just because, 
in a period of abnormal stress, I once let you go for 
three. I had really begun to be worried for fear you’d 
tumbled into the Potomac. My chicks would miss you 
dreadfully; they love their Uncle Gordon. Please re¬ 
member that you promised to send them a donkey. 

Please also remember that I’m a busier person than 
you. It’s a lot harder to run the John Grier Home 
than the House of Representatives. Besides* you have 
more efficient people to help. 

This is n’t a letter; it’s an indignant remonstrance. 
I ’ll write to-morrow — or the next day. 

S. 

p.s. On reading your letter over again I am slightly 
mollified, but dinna think I believe a’ your saft words. 
I ken weel ye only flatter when ye speak sagjair. 


233 


July 17. 


Dear Judy: 

I have a history to recount. 

This, please remember, is Wednesday next. So at 
half-past two o’clock our little Sophie was bathed and 
brushed and clothed in fine linen, and put in charge of 
a trusty orphan, with anxious instructions to keep her 
clean. 

At three-thirty to the minute — never have I known 
a human being so disconcertingly businesslike as J. F. 
Bretland — an automobile of expensive foreign design 
rolled up to the steps of this imposing chateau. A 
square-shouldered, square-jawed personage, with a 
chopped-off mustache and a manner that inclines one 
to hurry, presented himself three minutes later at my 
library door. He greeted me briskly as “ Miss Mc- 
Kosh.” I gently corrected him, and he changed to 
“ Miss McKim.” I indicated my most soothing arm¬ 
chair, and invited him to take some light refreshment 
after his journey. He accepted a glass of water (I ad¬ 
mire a temperate parent), and evinced an impatient 
desire to be done with the business. So I rang the bell 
and ordered the little Sophie to be brought down. 

“ Hold on, Miss McGee! ” said he to me. “ I’d 
rather see her in her own environment. I will go with 
234 


DEAR ENEMY 


235 

you to the playroom or corral or wherever you keep 
your youngsters.” 

So I led him to the nursery, where thirteen or four¬ 
teen mites in gingham rompers were tumbling about on 
mattresses on the floor. Sophie, alone in the glory of 
feminine petticoats, was ensconced in the blue-ging- 
hamed arms of a very bored orphan. She was 
squirming and fighting to get down, and her feminine 
petticoats were tightly wound about her neck. I took 
her in my arms, smoothed her clothes, wiped her nose, 
and invited her to look at the gentleman. 

That child’s whole future hung upon five minutes of 
sunniness, and instead of a single smile, she whined! 

Mr. Bretland shook her hand in a very gingerly 
fashion and chirruped to her as you might to a pup. 
Sophie took not the slightest notice of him, but turned 
her back, and buried her face in my neck. He 
shrugged his shoulders, supposed that they could take 
her on trial. She might suit his wife; he himself 
did n’t want one, anyway. And we turned to go out. 

Then who should come toddling straight across his 
path but that little sunbeam Allegra! Exactly in front 
of him she staggered, threw her arms about like a 
windmill, and plumped down on all fours. He hopped 
aside with great agility to avoid stepping on her, and 
then picked her up and set her on her feet. She 
clasped her arms about his leg, and looked up at him 
with a gurgling laugh. 

“ Daddy! Frow baby up! ” 


DEAR ENEMY 


236 

He is the first man, barring the doctor, whom the 
child has seen for weeks, and evidently he resembles 
somewhat her almost forgotten father. 

J. F. Bretland picked her up and tossed her in the 
air as handily as though it were a daily occurrence, 
while she ecstatically shrieked her delight. Then 
when he showed signs of lowering her, she grasped him 
by an ear and a nose, and drummed a tattoo on his 
stomach with both feet. No one could ever accuse 
Allegra of lacking vitality! 

J. F. disentangled himself from her endearments, 
and emerged, rumpled as to hair, but with a firm-set 
jaw. He set her on her feet, but retained her little 
doubled-up fist. 

" This is the kid for me,” he said. “ I don’t believe 
I need look any further.” 

I explained that we could n’t separate little Allegra 
from her brothers; but the more I objected, the stub- 
bo rner his jaw became. We went back to the library, 
and argued about it for half an hour. 

He liked her heredity, he liked her looks, he liked her 
spirit, he liked her. If he was going to have a daugh¬ 
ter foisted on him, he wanted one with some ginger. 
He’d be hanged if he ’d take that other whimpering 
little thing. It was n’t natural. But if I gave him 
Allegra, he would bring her up as his own child, and 
see that she was provided for for the rest of her life. 
Did I have any right to cut her out from all that just 
for a lot of sentimental nonsense? The family was 


DEAR ENEMY 


237 

already broken up; the best I could do for them now 
was to provide for them individually. 

“ Take all three,” said I, quite brazenly. 

But, no, he couldn’t consider that; his wife was 
an invalid, and one child was all that she could man¬ 
age. 

Well, I was in a dreadful quandary. It seemed such 
a chance for the child, and yet it did seem so cruel to 
separate her from those two adoring little brothers. I 
knew that if the Bretlands adopted her legally, they 
would do their best to break all ties with the past, and 
the child was still so tiny she would forget her broth¬ 
ers as quickly as she had her father. 

Then I thought about you, Judy, and of how bitter 
you have always been because, when that family wanted 
to adopt you, the asylum wouldn’t let you go. You 
have always said that you might have had a home, too, 
like other children, but that Mrs. Lippett stole it away 
from you. Was I perhaps stealing little Allegra’s 
home from her? With the two boys it would be dif¬ 
ferent; they could be educated and turned out to shift 
for themselves. But to a girl a home like this would 
mean everything. Ever since baby Allegra came to us, 
she has seemed to me just such another child as baby 
Judy must have been. She has ability and spirit. We 
must somehow furnish her with opportunity. She, 
too, deserves her share of the world’s beauty and good 
— as much as nature has fitted her to appreciate. And 
could any asylum ever give her that? I stood and 


238 


DEAR ENEMY 


thought and thought while Mr. Bretland impatiently 
paced the floor. 

“ You have those boys down and let me talk to 
them,” Mr. Bretland insisted. “If they have a spark 
of generosity, they ’ll be glad to let her go.” 

I sent for them, but my heart a solid lump of 
lead. They were still missing their father; it seemed 
merciless to snatch away that darling baby sister, 
too. 

They came hand in hand, sturdy, fine little chaps, 
and stood solemnly at attention, with big, wondering 
eyes fixed on the strange gentleman. 

“ Come here, boys. I want to talk to you.” He 
took each by a hand. “ In the house I live in we 
have n’t any little baby, so my wife and I decided to 
come here, where there are so many babies without 
fathers and mothers, and take one home to be ours. 
She will have a beautiful house to live in, and lots of 
toys to play with, and she will be happy all her life — 
much happier than she could ever be here. I know 
that you will be very glad to hear that I have chosen 
your little sister.” 

“ And won’t we ever see her any more ? ” asked 
Clifford. 

“ Oh, yes, sometimes.” 

Clifford looked from me to Mr. Bretland, and two 
big tears began rolling down his cheeks. He jerked 
his hand away and came and hurled himself into my 
arms. 


DEAR ENEMY 


239 

“ Don’t let him have her! Please! Please! Send 
him away! ” 

“ Take them all! ” I begged. 

But he ’s a hard man. 

“ I did n’t come for an entire asylum,” said he, 
shortly. 

By this time Don was sobbing on the other side. 
And then who should inject himself into the hubbub 
but Dr. MacRae, with baby Allegra in his arms! 

I introduced them, and explained. Mr. Bretland 
reached for the baby, and Sandy held her tight. 

“ Quite impossible,” said Sandy, shortly. “ Miss 
McBride will tell you that it ’s one of the rules of this 
institution never to separate a family.” 

“ Miss McBride has already decided,” said J. F. B., 
stiffly. “ We have fully discussed the question.” 

“ You must be mistaken,” said Sandy, becoming his 
Scotchest, and turning to me. “ You surely had no 
intention of performing any such cruelty as this? ” 

Here was the decision of Solomon all over again, 
with two of the stubbornest men that the good Lord 
ever made wresting poor little Allegra limb from limb. 

I despatched the three chicks back to the nursery 
and returned to the fray. We argued loud and hotly, 
until finally J. F. B. echoed my own frequent query 
of the last five months: “Who is the head of this 
asylum, the superintendent or the visiting physician ? ” 

I was furious with the doctor for placing me in such 
a position before that man, but I could n’t quarrel with 


240 


DEAR ENEMY 


him in public; so I had ultimately to tell Mr. Bretland, 
with finality and flatness, that Allegra was out of the 
question. Would he not reconsider Sophie? 

No, he’d be darned if he ’d reconsider Sophie. 
Allegra or nobody. He hoped that I realized that I 
had weakly allowed the child’s entire future to be 
ruined. And with that parting shot he backed to 
the door. “ Miss MacRae, Dr. McBride, .good aft¬ 
ernoon.” He achieved two formal bows and with¬ 
drew. 

And the moment the door closed Sandy and I fought 
it out. He said that any person who claimed to have 
any modern, humane views on the subject of child¬ 
care ought to be ashamed to have considered for even 
a moment the question of breaking up such a family; 
and I accused him of keeping her for the purely selfish 
reason that he was fond of the child and did n’t wish 
to lose her. (And that, I believe, is the truth.) Oh, 
we had the battle of our career, and he finally took him¬ 
self off with a stiffness and politeness that excelled J. 
F. B.’s. 

Between the two of them I feel as limp as though 
I’d been run through our new mangling-machine. 
And then Betsy came home, and reviled me for throw¬ 
ing away the choicest family we have ever discovered! 

So this is the end of our week of feverish activity; 
and both Sophie and Allegra are, after all, to be institu¬ 
tion children. Oh dear! oh dear! Please remove 
Sandy from the staff, and send me, instead, a German, 



DEAR ENEMY 241 

a Frenchman, a Chinaman, if you choose — anything 
but a Scotchman. 

Yours wearily, 

Sallie. 

p.s. I dare say that Sandy is also passing a busy 
evening in writing to have me removed. I won’t ob¬ 
ject if you wish to do it. I am tired of institutions. 


Dear Gordon: 

You are a c aptious^ ceiling, carping, crabbed, con¬ 
tentious, cantankerous chap. Hoot mon! an’ why 
shouldna I drap into Scotch.gm I choose? An’ I with 
a Mac in my name. 

Of course the John Grier will be delighted to wel¬ 
come you on Thursday next, not only for the donkey, 
but for your sweet sunny presence as well. I was plan¬ 
ning to write you a mile-long letter to make up for past 
deficiencies, but wha’s the use? I’ll be seeing you 
the morn’s morn, an’ unco gude will be the sight o’ you 
for sair een. 

Dinna fash yoursel, Laddie, because o’ my language. 
My forebears were from the Hielands. 


McBride. 



Dear Judy: 

All’s well with the John Grier — except for a broken 
tooth, a sprained wrist, a badly scratched knee, and one 
case of pink-eye. Betsy and I are being polite, but 



ed hat Y 


s M c B- 


CYdanm 

up ots politics 

as Qovdon 

VS C otn i nd 



cool, toward the doctor. The annoying thing is that 
he is rather cool, too; and he seems to be under the im¬ 
pression that the drop in temperature is all on his side. 
242 








DEAR ENEMA 


243 

He goes about his business in a scientific, impersonal 
way, entirely courteous, but somewhat detached. 

However, the doctor is not disturbing us very ex¬ 
tensively at present. We are about to receive a visit 
from a far more fascinating person than Sandy. The 
House of Representatives again rests from its labors, * 
and Gordon enjoys a vacation, two days of which he is 
planning to spend at the Brantwood Inn. 

I am delighted to hear that you have had enough 
seaside, and are considering our neighborhood for the 
rest of the summer. There are several spacious es¬ 
tates to be had within a few miles of the John Grier, 
and it will be a nice change for Jervis to come home 
only at week-ends. After a pleasantly occupied ab¬ 
sence, you will each have some new ideas to add to the 
common stock. 

I can’t add any further philosophy just now on the 
subject of married life, having to refresh my memory 
on the Monroe Doctrine and one or two other political 
topics. 

I am looking eagerly forward to August and three 
months with you. 

As ever, 


Sallie. 


Friday. 


Dear Enemy: 

It’s very forgiving of me to invite you to dinner 
after that volcanic explosion of last week. However, 
please come. You remember our philanthropic friend, 
Mr. Hallock, who sent us the peanuts and goldfish and 
other indigestible trifles ? He will be with us to-night, 
so this is your chance to turn the stream of his benevo¬ 
lence into more hygienic channels. 

We dine at seven. 

As ever, 

Sallie McBride. 


Dear Enemy: 

You should have lived in the days when each man 
inhabited a separate cave on a separate mountain. 

S. McBride. 


244 


Friday, 6:30. 

Dear Judy: 

Gordon is here, and a reformed man so far as his 
attitude toward my asylum goes. He has discovered 
the world-old truth that the way to a mother’s heart is 
through praise of her children, and he had nothing but 
praise for all 107 of mine. Even in the case of Loretta 
Higgins he found something pleasant to say; he thinks 
it nice that she is n’t cross-eyed. 

He went shopping with me in the village this after¬ 
noon, and was very helpful about picking out hair-rib¬ 
bons for a couple of dozen little girls. He begged to 
choose Sadie Kate’s himself, and after many hesita¬ 
tions he hit upon orange satin for one braid and emer¬ 
ald-green for the other. 

While we were immersed in this business I became 
aware of a neighboring customer, ostensibly engaged 
with hooks and eyes, but straining every ear to listen 
to our nonsense. 

She was so dressed up in a picture-hat, a spotted 
veil, a feather boa, and a nouveau art parasol that I 
never dreamed she was any acquaintance of mine till 
I happened to catch her eye with a familiar malicious 
gleam in it. She bowed stiffly, and disapprovingly; 
245 



246 DEAR ENEMY 

and I nodded back. Mrs. Maggie McGurk in her 
company clothes! 

Aft? G,ovk 



That is a pleasanter expression than she really has. 
Her smile is due to a slip of the pen. 

Poor Mrs. McGurk can’t understand any possible 
intellectual interest in a man. She suspects me of 
wanting to marry every single one that I meet. At 
first she thought I wanted to snatch away her doctor; 
but now, after seeing me with Gordon, she considers 
me a bigamous monster who wants them both. 

Good-by; some guests approach. 




DEAR ENEMY 


247 


II 130 P.M. 

I have just been giving a dinner for Gordon, with 
Betsy and Mrs. Livermore and Mr. Witherspoon as 
guests. I graciously included the doctor, but he curtly 
declined on the ground that he was n’t in a social 
mood. Our Sandy does not let politeness interfere 
with truth! 

There is no doubt about it, Gordon is the most pre¬ 
sentable man that ever breathed. He is so good-look¬ 
ing and easy and gracious and witty, and his manners 
are so impeccable — Oh, he would make a wonder¬ 
fully decorative husband! But after all, I suppose you 
do live with a husband; you don’t just show him off 
at dinners and teas. 

He was exceptionally nice to-night. Betsy and 
Mrs. Livermore both fell in love with him — and I just 
a trifle. He entertained us with a speech in his best 
public manner, apropos of Java’s welfare. We have 
been having a dreadful time finding a sleeping-place 
for that monkey, and Gordon proved with incontestable 
logic that, since he was presented to us by Jimmie, and 
Jimmie is Percy’s friend, he should sleep with Percy. 
Gordon is a natural talker, and an audience affects him 
like champagne. He can argue with as much emo¬ 
tional earnestness on the subject of a monkey as on the 
greatest hero that ever bled for his country. 

I felt tears coming to my eyes when he described 
Java’s loneliness as he watched out the night in our 


248 


DEAR ENEMY 


furnace cellar, and pictured his brothers at play in the 
far-off tropical jungle. 

A man who can talk like that has a future before 
him. I have n’t a doubt but that I shall be voting 
for him for President in another twenty years. 

We all had a beautiful time, and entirely forgot — 
for a space of three hours — that 107 orphans slum¬ 
bered about us. Much as I love the little dears, it is 
pleasant to get away from them once in a while. 

My guests left at ten, and it must be midnight by 
now. (This is the eighth day, and my clock has 
stopped again; Jane forgets to wind it as regularly as 
Friday comes around.) However, I know it’s late; 
and as a woman, it’s my duty to try for beauty sleep, 
especially with an eligible young suitor at hand. 

I ’ll finish to-morrow. Good night. 


Saturday. 

Gordon spent this morning playing with my asylum 
and planning some intelligent presents to be sent later. 
He thinks that three neatly painted totem-poles would 
add to the attractiveness of our Indian camps. He is 
also going to make us a present of three dozen pink 
rompers for the babies. Pink is a color that is very 
popular with the superintendent of this asylum, who 
is deadly tired of blue! Our generous friend is like¬ 
wise amusing himself with the idea of a couple of 
donkeys and saddles and a little red cart. Isn’t it 


DEAR ENEMY 


249 


nice that Gordon’s father provided for him so amply, 
and that he is such a charitably inclined young man? 
He is at present lunching with Percy at the hotel, and, 
I trust, imbibing fresh ideas in the field of philan¬ 
thropy. 

Perhaps you think I haven’t enjoyed this interrup¬ 
tion to the monotony of institution life! You can say 
all you please, my dear Mrs. Pendleton, about how well 
I am managing your asylum, but, just the same, it is n’t 
natural for me to be so stationary. I very frequently 
need a change. That is why Gordon, with his bub¬ 
bling optimism and boyish spirits, is so exhilarating, 
especially as a contrast to too much doctor. 


Sunday morning. 

I must tell you the end of Gordon’s visit. His in¬ 
tention had been to leave at four, but in an evil mo¬ 
ment I begged him to stay over till 9130, and yesterday 
afternoon he and Singapore and I took a long ’cross¬ 
country walk, far out of sight of the towers of this 
asylum, and stopped at a pretty little roadside inn, 
where we had a satisfying supper of ham and eggs and 
cabbage. Sing stuffed so disgracefully that he has 
been languid ever since. 

The walk and all was fun, and a very grateful 
change from this monotonous life I lead. It would 
have kept me pleasant and contented for weeks if some¬ 
thing most unpleasant had n’t happened later. We had 


250 


DEAR ENEMY 


a beautiful, sunny, care-free afternoon, and I’m sorry 
to have had it spoiled. We came back very unro- 
mantically in the trolley-car, and reached the J. G. H. 
before nine, just in good time for him to run on to the 
station and catch his train. So I did n’t ask him to 
come in, but politely wished him a pleasant journey at 
the porte-cochere. 

A car was standing at the side of the drive, in the 
shadow of the house; I recognized it, and thought the 
doctor was inside with Mr. Witherspoon. (They fre¬ 
quently spend their evenings together in the labora¬ 
tory.) Well, Gordon, at the moment of parting, was 
seized with an unfortunate impulse to ask me to aban¬ 
don the management of this asylum, and take over the 
management of a private house instead. 

Did you ever know anything like the man ? He had 
had the whole afternoon and miles of empty meadow 
in which to discuss the question, but instead he must 
choose our door-mat! 

I don’t know just what I did say: I tried to turn 
it off lightly and hurry him to his train. But he re¬ 
fused to be turned off lightly. He braced himself 
against a post and insisted upon arguing it out. I 
knew that he was missing his train, and that every 
window in this institution was open. A man never 
has the slightest thought of possible overhearers; it is 
always the woman who thinks of convention. 

Being in a nervous twitter to get rid of him, I 
suppose I was pretty abrupt and tactless. He began 


DEAR ENEMY 


251 


to get angry, and then by some unlucky chance his eye 
fell on that car. He recognized it, too, and, being in 
a savage mood, he began making fun of the doctor. 
“ Old Goggle-eyes ” he called him, and “ Scatchy,” 
and oh, the awfullest lot of unmannerly, silly things! 

I was assuring him with convincing earnestness that 
I did n’t care a rap about the doctor, that I thought 
he was just as funny and impossible as he could be, 
when suddenly the doctor rose out of his car and 
walked up to us. 

I could have evaporated from the earth very com¬ 
fortably at that moment! 

Sandy was quite clearly angry, as well he might be, 
after the things he’d heard, but he was entirely cold 
and collected. Gordon was hot, and bursting with 
imaginary wrongs. I was aghast at this perfectly 
foolish and unnecessary muddle that had suddenly 
arisen out of nothing. Sandy apologized to me with 
unimpeachable politeness for inadvertently overhear¬ 
ing, and then turned to Gordon and stiffly invited him 
to get into his car and ride to the station. 

I begged him not to go. I did n’t wish to be the 
cause of any silly quarrel between them. But without 
paying the slightest attention to me, they climbed into 
the car, and whirled away, leaving me placidly stand¬ 
ing on the door-mat. 

I came in and went to bed, and lay awake for hours, 
expecting to hear — I don’t know what kind of ex¬ 
plosion. It is now eleven o’clock, and the doctor 


252 


DEAR ENEMY 


has n't appeared. I don’t know how on earth I shall 
meet him when he does. I fancy I shall hide in the 
clothes-closet. 

Did you ever know anything as unnecessary and 
stupid as this whole situation ? I suppose now I' ve 
quarreled with Gordon,— and I positively don’t know 
over what,— and of course my relations with the doc¬ 
tor are going to be terribly awkward. I said horrid 
things about him,— you know the silly way I talk,— 
things I did n’t mean in the least. 

I wish it were yesterday at this time. I would make 
Gordon go at four. 


Sallie. 


Sunday afternoon. 

Dear Dr. MacRae: 

That was a horrid, stupid, silly business last night. 
But by this time you must know me well enough to 
realize that I never mean the foolish things I say. My 
tongue has no slightest connection with my brain; it 
just runs along by itself. I must seem to you very un¬ 
grateful for all the help you have given me in this un¬ 
accustomed work and for the patience you have (oc¬ 
casionally) shown. 

I do appreciate the fact that I could never have run 
this asylum by myself without your responsible pres¬ 
ence in the background; and though once in a while, 
as you yourself must acknowledge, you have been 
pretty impatient and bad tempered and difficult, still 
I have never held it up against you, and I really did n’t 
mean any of the ill-mannered things I said last night. 
Please forgive me for being rude. I should hate very 
much to lose your friendship. And we are friends, 
are we not? I like to think so. 

S. McB. 


253 


Dear Judy: 

I am sure I have n’t an idea whether or not the doc¬ 
tor and I have made up our differences. I sent him a 
polite note of apology, which he received in abysmal 
silence. He didn’t come near us until this afternoon, 
and he hasn’t by the blink of an eyelash referred to 
our unfortunate contretemps. We talked exclusively 
about an ichthyol salve that will remove eczema from 
a baby’s scalp; then, Sadie Kate being present, the con¬ 
versation turned to cats. It seems that the doctor’s 
Maltese cat has four kittens, and Sadie Kate will not 
be silenced until she has seen them. Before I knew 
what was happening I found myself making an engage¬ 
ment to take her to see those miserable kittens at four 
o’clock to-morrow afternoon. 

Whereupon the doctor, with an indifferently polite 
bow, took himself off. And that apparently is the end. 

Your Sunday note arrives, and I am delighted to 
hear that you have taken the house. It will be beauti¬ 
ful having you for a neighbor for so long. Our im¬ 
provements ought to march along, with you and the 
president at our elbow. But it does seem as though 
you ought to get out here before August 7. Are you 
sure that city air is good for you just now? I have 
never known so devoted a wife. 

My respects to the president. 



7 


254 



July 22- 


Dear Judy: 

Please listen to this! 

At four o’clock I took Sadie Kate to the doctor's' 
house to look at those cats. But Freddy Howland just 
twenty minutes before had fallen down-stairs, so the 
doctor was at the Howland house occupying himself 
with Freddy’s collar-bone. He had left word for us 
to sit down and wait, that he would be back shortly. 

Mrs. McGurk ushered us into the library; and then, 
not to leave us alone, came in herself on a pretense 
of polishing the brass. I don’t know what she thought 
we’d do! Run off with the pelican perhaps. 

I settled down to an article about the Chinese situa¬ 
tion in the Century, and Sadie Kate roamed about at 
large examining everything she found, like a curious 
little mongoose. 

She commenced with his stuffed flamingo and 
wanted to know what made it so tall and what made it 
so red. Did it always eat frogs, and had it hurt its 
other foot? She ticks off questions with the steady 
persistency of an eight-day clock. 

I buried myself in my article and left Mrs. McGurk 
to deal with Sadie. Finally, after she had worked 
half-way around the room, she came to a portrait of 
255 


DEAR ENEMY 


256 

a little girl occupying a leather frame in the center 
of the doctor’s writing desk — a child with a queer elf¬ 
like beauty, resembling very strangely our little 
Allegra. This photograph might have been a portrait 
of Allegra grown five years older. I had noticed the 
picture the night we took supper with the doctor, and 
had meant to ask which of his little patients she was. 
Happily I did n’t! 

“ Who’s that? ” said Sadie Kate, pouncing upon it. 

“ It’s the docthor’s little gurrl.” 

“ Where is she ? ” 

“ Shure, she’s far away wit’ her gran’ma.” 

“ Where’d he get her ? ” 

“ His wife give her to him.” 

I emerged from my book with electric suddenness. 

“His wife!” I cried. 

The next instant I was furious with myself for hav¬ 
ing spoken, but I was so completely taken off my guard. 
Mrs. McGurk straightened up and became volubly 
conversational at once. 

“ And did n’t he never tell you about his wife? She 
went insane six years ago. It got so it were n’t safe 
to keep her in the house, and he had to put her away. 
It near killed him. I never seen a lady more beautiful 
than her. I guess he did n’t so much as smile for a 
year. It’s funny he never told you nothing, and you 
such a friend! ” 

“ Naturally it’s not a subject he cares to talk about,” 


DEAR ENEMY 


25 7 

said I dryly, and I asked her what kind of brass polish 
she used. 

Sadie Kate and I went out to the garage and hunted 
up the kittens ourselves; and we mercifully got away 
before the doctor came back. 

But will you tell me what this means ? Did n’t 
Jervis know he was married? It’s the queerest thing 
I ever heard. I do think, as the McGurk suggests, 
that Sandy might casually have dropped the informa¬ 
tion that he had a wife in an insane asylum. 

But of course it must be a terrible tragedy and I 
suppose he can’t bring himself to talk about it. I see 
now why he’s so morbid over the question of he¬ 
redity — I dare say he fears for the little girl. When 
I think of all the jokes I ’ve made on the subject, I’m 
aghast at how I must have hurt him, and angry with 
myself and angry with him. 

I feel as though I never wanted to see the man again. 
Mercy! did you ever know such a muddle as we are 
getting ourselves into ? 

Yours, 

Sallie. 

p.s. Tom McCoomb has pushed Mamie Prout into the 
box of mortar that the masons use. She’s parboiled. 
I’ve sent for the doctor. 


July 24. 


My dear Madam: 

I have a shocking scandal to report about the super¬ 
intendent of the John Grier Home. Don’t let it get 
into the newspapers, please. I can picture the spicy 
details of the investigation prior to her removal by the 
“ Cruelty.” 

1 was sitting in the sunshine by my open window this 
morning reading a sweet book on the Froebel theory 
of child culture — never lose your temper, always 
speak kindly to the little ones. Though they may ap¬ 
pear bad, they are not so in reality. It is either that 
they are not feeling well or have nothing interesting 
to do. Never punish; simply deflect their attention. 
I was entertaining a very loving, uplifted attitude 
toward all this young life about me when my attention 
was attracted by a group of little boys beneath the 
window. 

“ Aw — John — don’t hurt it! ” 

“Let it go!” 

“Kill it quick!” 

And above their remonstrances rose the agonized 
squealing of some animal in pain. I dropped Froebel 
258 


DEAR ENEMY 


259 


and, running downstairs, burst upon them from the 
side door. They saw me coming, and scattered right 
and left, revealing Johnnie Cobden engaged in tortur¬ 
ing a mouse. I will spare you the grisly details. I 
called to one of the boys to come and drown the crea¬ 
ture quick! John I seized by the collar; and dragged 
him squirming and kicking in at the kitchen door. He 
is a big, hulking boy of thirteen, and he fought like 
a little tiger, holding on to posts and door-jambs as 
we passed. Ordinarily I doubt if I could have handled 
him, but that one sixteenth Irish that I possess was all 
on top, and I was fighting mad. We burst into the 
kitchen, and I hastily looked about for a means of 
chastisement. The pancake-turner 'was the first 
utensil that met my eyes. I seized it and beat that 
child with all my strength, until I had reduced him to 
a cowering, whimpering mendicant for mercy, instead 
of the fighting little bully he had been four minutes 
before. 

And then who should suddenly burst into the midst 
of this explosion but Dr. MacRae! His face waS| 
blank with astonishment. He strode over and took 
the pancake-turner out of my hand and set the boy 
on his feet. Johnnie got behind him and clung! I 
was so angry that I really could n’t talk; it was all I 
could do not to cry. 

“ Come, we will take him up to the office,” was all 
the doctor said. And we marched out, Johnnie keep¬ 
ing as far from me as possible and limping conspic- 


26 o 


DEAR ENEMY 


uously. We left him in the outer office, and went 
into my library and shut the door. 

“ What in the world has the child done ? ” he asked. 

At that I simply laid my head down on the table and 
began to cry! I was utterly exhausted both emotion¬ 
ally and physically; it had taken all the strength I pos¬ 
sessed to make the pancake-turner effective. 

I sobbed out all the bloody details, and he told me 
not to think about it; the mouse was dead now. Then 
he got me some water to drink, and told me to keep 
on crying till I was tired; it would do me good. I am 
not sure that he did n't pat me on the head! Anyway, 
it was his best professional manner. I have watched 
him administer the same treatment a dozen times to 
hysterical orphans. And this was the first time in a 
week that we had spoken beyond the formality of 
“ good morning ”! 

Well, as soon as I had got to the stage where I could 
sit up and laugh, intermittently dabbing my eyes with 
, a wad of handkerchief, we began a review of Johnnie’s 
case. The boy has a morbid heredity, and may be 
slightly defective, says Sandy. We must deal with the 
fact as we would with any other disease. Even nor¬ 
mal boys are often cruel; a child’s moral sense is un¬ 
developed at thirteen. 

Then he suggested that I bathe my eyes with hot 
water and resume my dignity. Which I did. And 
we had Johnnie in. He stood — by preference — 
through the entire interview. The doctor talked to 


DEAR ENEMY 


261 


him, oh, so sensibly and kindly and humanely! John 
put up the plea that the mouse was a pest and ought 
to be killed. The doctor replied that the welfare of 
the human race demanded the sacrifice of many ani¬ 
mals for its own good, not for revenge, but that the 
sacrifice must be carried out with the least possible 
hurt to the animal. He explained about the mouse’s 
nervous system, and how the poor little creature had 
no means of defense. It was a cowardly thing to hurt 
it wantonly. He told John to try to develop imagina¬ 
tion enough to look at things from the other person’s 
point of view, even if the other person was only a 
mouse. Then he went to the bookcase and took down 
my copy of Burns, and told the boy what a great 
poet he was, and how all Scotchmen loved his memory. 

“ And this is what he wrote about a mouse,” said 
Sandy, turning to the “ Wee, sleekit, cow’rin, tim’rous 
beastie,” which he read and explained to the lad as only 
a Scotchman could. 

Johnnie departed penitent, and Sandy redirected his 
professional attention to me. He said I was tired and 
in need of a change. Why not go to the Adirondacks 
for a week? He and Betsy and Mr. Witherspoon 
would make themselves into a committee to run the 
asylum. 

You know, that’s exactly what I was longing to do! 
I need a shifting of ideas and some pine-scented air. 
My family opened the camp last week, and think I’m 
awful not to join them. They won’t understand that 


262 


DEAR ENEMY 


when you accept a position like this you can’t casually 
toss it aside whenever you feel like it. But for a few 
days I can easily manage. My asylum is wound up 
like an eight-day clock, and will run until a week from 
next Monday at 4 p.m., when my train will return me. 

' Then I shall be comfortably settled again before you 
arrive, and with no errant fancies in my brain. 

Meanwhile Master John is in a happily chastened 
frame of mind and body. And I rather suspect that 
Sandy’s moralizing had the more force because it was 
preceded by my pancake-turner! But one thing I 
know —• Suzanne Estelle is terrified whenever I step 
into her kitchen. I casually picked up the potato- 
masher this morning while I was commenting upon 
last night’s over-salty soup, and she ran to cover be¬ 
hind the woodshed door. 

To-morrow at nine I set out on my travels, after 
preparing the way with five telegrams. And, oh! you 
can’t imagine how I’m looking forward to being a gay, 
care-free young thing again — to canoeing on the lake 
and tramping in the woods and dancing at the club¬ 
house. I was in a state of delirium all night long at 
the prospect. Really, I had n’t realized how mortally 
tired I had become of all this asylum scenery. 

“ What you need,” said Sandy to me, “ is to get 
away for a little and sow some wild oats.” 

That diagnosis was positively clairvoyant. I can’t 
think of anything in the world I’d rather do than sow 


DEAR ENEMY 263 

a few wild oats. I ’ll come back with fresh energy, 
ready to welcome you and a busy summer. 

As ever, 

Sallie. 

p.s. Jimmie and Gordon are both going to be up 
there. How I wish you could join us! A husband 
is very discommoding. 


Camp McBride, 


July 29. 

Dear Judy: 

This is to tell you that the mountains are higher 
than usual, the woods greener, and the lake bluer. 

People seem late about coming up this year; the 
Hardman’s camp is the only other one at our end of 
the lake that is open. The club-house is very scantily 
supplied with dancing-men, but we have as house guest 
an obliging young politician who likes to dance, so I 
am not discommoded by the general scarcity. 

The affairs of the nation and the rearing of orphans 
are alike delegated to the background while we paddle 
about among the lily-pads of this delectable lake. I 
look forward with reluctance to 7:56 next Monday 
morning, when I turn my back on the mountains. The 
awful thing about a vacation is that the moment it be¬ 
gins your happiness is already clouded by its approach- \ 
ing end. 

I hear a voice on the veranda asking if Sallie is to 
be found within or without. 

X 

Addio! 

S. 


264 


August 3. 


Dear Judy: 

Back at the John Grier, reshouldering the burdens of 
the coming generation. What should meet my eyes 
upon entering these grounds but John Cobden, of pan¬ 
cake-turner memory, wearing a badge upon his sleeve. 
I turned it to me and read “ S. P. C. A.” in letters of 
gold! The doctor, during my absence, has formed a 
local branch of the Cruelty to Animals, and made 
Johnnie its president. 

I hear that yesterday he stopped the workmen on 
the foundation for the new farm cottage and scolded 
them severely for whipping their horses up the incline! 
None of all this strikes any one but me as funny. 

There’s a lot of news, but with you due in four 
days, why bother to write? Just one delicious bit I 
am saving for the end. So hold your breath. You 
are going to receive a thrill on page 4. You should 
hear Sadie Kate squeal! Jane is cutting her hair. In¬ 
stead of wearing it in two tight braids like this, our 



265 



266 


DEAR ENEMY 


little colleen will in the future look like this: 

/^v 




Positively 
bev Iasi" 


peara^ce/ 

ib 

cheeKs'-T^zT" 


“ Them pigtails got on my nerves,” says Jane. 

You can see how much more stylish and becoming 
the present coiffure is. I think somebody will be want¬ 
ing to adopt her. Only Sadie Kate is such an inde¬ 
pendent, manly little creature; she is eminently fitted 
by nature to shift for herself. I must save adopting 
parents for the helpless ones. 



















DEAR ENEMY 


267 

You should see our new clothes! I can’t wait for 
this assemblage of rosebuds to burst upon you. And 
you should have seen those blue ginghamed eyes 
brighten when the new frocks were actually given 
out — three for each girl, all different colors, and all 
perfectly private personal property, with the owner’s 
indelible name inside the collar. Mrs. Lippett’s lazy 
system of having each child draw from the wash a 
promiscuous dress each week, was an insult to feminine 
nature. 

Sadie Kate is squealing like a baby pig. I must go 
to see if Jane has by mistake clipped off an ear. 

Jane hasn’t. Sadie’s excellent ears are still intact. 
She is just squealing on principle; the way one does in 
a dentist’s chair, under the belief that it is going to 
hurt the next instant. 

I really can’t think of anything else to write except 
my news,— so here it is,— and I hope you ’ll like it. 

I am engaged to be married. 

My love to you both. 

S. McB. 



The John Grier Home, 


November 15. 

Dear Judy: 

Betsy and I are just back from a giro in our new 
motor-car. It undoubtedly does add to the pleasure 
of institution life. The car of its own accord turned 
up Long Ridge Road, and stopped before the gates of 
Shady well. The chains were up, and the shutters bat¬ 
tened down, and the place looked closed and gloomy 
and rain-soaked. It wore a sort of fall of the House 
of Usher air, and did n’t in the least resemble the cheer¬ 
ful house that used to greet me hospitably of an aft¬ 
ernoon. 

I hate to have our nice summer ended. It seems as 
though a section of my life was shut away behind me, 
and the unknown future was pressing awfully close. 
Positively, I’d like to postpone that wedding another» 
six months, but I’m afraid poor Gordon would make 
too dreadful a fuss. Don’t think I’m getting wobbly, 
for I’m not. It’s just that somehow I need more time 
to think about it, and March is getting nearer every 
day. I know absolutely that I’m doing the most sen¬ 
sible thing. Everybody, man or woman, is the better 
for being nicely and appropriately and cheerfully mar¬ 
ried ; but oh dear! oh dear! I do hate upheavals, and 
268 



DEAR ENEMY 


269 

this is going to be such a world-without-end up¬ 
heaval ! Sometimes when the day’s work is over, and 
I’m tired, I have n’t the spirit to rise and meet it. 

And now especially since you’ve bought Shady- 
well, and are going to be here every summer, I resent 
having to leave. Next year, when I’m far away, I ’ll 
be consumed with homesickness, thinking of all the 
busy, happy times at the John Grier, with you and 
Betsy and Percy and our grumbly Scotchman working 
away cheerfully without me. How can anything ever 
make up to a mother for the loss of 107 children? 

I trust that Judy, Junior, stood the journey into 
town without upsetting her usual poise. I am sending 
her a bit giftie, made partly by myself and chiefly by 
Jane. But two rows, I must inform you, were done 
by the doctor. One only gradually plumbs the depths 
of Sandy’s nature. After a ten-months’ acquaintance 
with the man, I discover that he knows how to kiiit, 
an accomplishment he picked up in his boyhood from 
an old shepherd on the Scotch moors. 

He dropped in three days ago and stayed for tea, 
really in almost his old friendly mood. But he has 
since stiffened up again to the same man of granite 
we knew all summer. I’ve given up trying to make 
him out. I suppose, however, that any one might be 
expected to be a bit down with a wife in an insane 
asylum. I wish he’d talk about it once. It’s awful 
having such a shadow hovering in the background of 
your thoughts and never coming out into plain sight. 


270 


DEAR ENEMY 


I know that this letter does n’t contain a word of the 
kind of news that you like to hear. But it’s that 
beastly twilight hour of a damp November day, and 
I’m in a beastly uncheerful mood. I’m awfully 
afraid that I am developing into a temperamental per¬ 
son, and Heaven knows Gordon can supply all the tem¬ 
perament that one family needs! I don’t know where 
we ’ll land if I don’t preserve my sensibly stolid, cheer¬ 
ful nature. 

Have you really decided to go South with Jervis? 
I appreciate your feeling (to a slight extent) about not 
wanting to be separated from a husband; but it does 
seem sort of hazardous to me to move so young a 
daughter to the tropics. 

The children are playing blindman’s-buff in the 
lower corridor. I think I ’ll have a romp with them, 
and try to be in a more affable mood before resuming 
my pen. 

A bientot! 


Sallie. 

p.s. These November nights are pretty cold, and we 
are getting ready to move the camps indoors. Our 
Indians are very pampered young savages at present, 
with a double supply of blankets and hot-water bottles. 
I shall hate to see the camps go; they have done a lot 
for us. Our lads will be as tough as Canadian trap¬ 
pers when they come in. 


November 20. 


Dear Judy: 

Your motherly solicitude is sweet, but I didn’t 
mean what I said. Of course it’s perfectly safe to con¬ 
vey Judy, Junior, to the temperately tropical lands that 
are washed by the Caribbean. She ’ll thrive as long as 
you don’t set her absolutely on top of the equator. 
And your bungalow, shaded by palms and fanned by 
sea-breezes, with an ice-machine in the back yard and 
an English doctor across the bay, sounds made for the 
rearing of babies. 

My objections were all due to the selfish fact that 
I and the John Grier are going to be lonely without you 
this winter. I really think it’s entrancing to have a 
husband who engages in such picturesque pursuits as 
financing tropical railroads and developing asphalt 
lakes and rubber groves and mahogany forests. I 
wish that Gordon would take to life in those pic¬ 
turesque countries; I’d be more thrilled by the roman¬ 
tic possibilities of the future. Washington seems aw¬ 
fully commonplace compared with Honduras and Nic¬ 
aragua and the islands of the Caribbean. 

I ’ll be down to wave good-by. 

Addio! 

Sallie. 

271 


November 24. 

'Dear Gordon: 

Judy has gone back to town, and is sailing next 
week for Jamaica, where she is to make her headquar¬ 
ters while Jervis cruises about adjacent waters on these 
entertaining new ventures of his. Could n’t you en¬ 
gage in traffic in the South Seas ? I think I’d feel 
pleasanter about leaving my asylum if you had some¬ 
thing romantic and adventurous to offer instead. And 
think how beautiful you’d be in those white linen 
clothes! I really believe I might be able to stay in love 
with a man quite permanently if he always dressed in 
white. 

You can’t imagine how I miss Judy. Her absence 
leaves a dreadful hole in my afternoons. Can’t you 
run up for a week-end soon? I think the sight of you 
would be very cheering, and I’m feeling awfully down 
of late. You know, my dear Gordon, I like you much 
better when you ’re right here before my eyes than 
when I merely think about you from a distance. I be¬ 
lieve you must have a sort of hypnotic influence. Oc¬ 
casionally, after you’ve been away a long time, your 
spell wears a little thin; but when I see you, it all comes 
back. You’ve been away now a long, long time; so, 
please come fast and bewitch me over again! 


S. 


December 2. 


Dear Judy: 

Do you remember in college, when you and I used 
to plan our favorite futures, how we were forever 
turning our faces southward? And now to think it 
has really come true, and you are there, coasting 
around those tropical isles! Did you ever have such 
a thrill in the whole of your life, barring one or two 
connected with Jervis, as when you came up on deck 
in the early dawn and found yourself riding at anchor 
in the harbor of Kingston, with the water so blue and 
the palms so green and the beach so white ? 

I remember when I first woke in that harbor; I felt 
like a heroine of grand opera surrounded by untruly 
beautiful painted scenery. Nothing in my four trips 
to Europe ever thrilled me like the queer sights and 
tastes and smells of those three warm weeks seven 
years ago. And ever since, I’ve panted to get back. 
When I stop to think about it, I can hardly bring my¬ 
self to swallow our unexciting meals; I wish to be 
dining on curries and tamales and mangos. Is n’t it 
funny? You’d think I must have a dash of Creole 
or Spanish or some warm blood in me somewhere, 
but I’m nothing on earth but a chilly mixture of Eng¬ 
lish and Irish and Scotch. Perhaps that is why I hear 
the South calling. “ The palm dreams of the pine, 
and the pine of the palm.” 

273 


274 


DEAR ENEMY 


After seeing you off, I turned back to New York 
with an awful wander-thirst gnawing at my vitals. 
I, too, wanted to be starting off on my travels in a 
new blue hat and a new blue suit with a big bunch of 
violets in my hand. For five minutes I would cheer¬ 
fully have said good-by forever to poor dear Gordon 
in return for the wide world to wander in. I suppose 
you are thinking they are not entirely incompatible — 
Gordon and the wide world — but I don’t seem able 
to get your point of view about husbands. I see mar¬ 
riage as a man must, a good, sensible workaday in¬ 
stitution; but awfully curbing to one’s liberty. Some¬ 
how, after you ’re married forever, life has lost its 
feeling of adventure. There are n’t any romantic pos¬ 
sibilities waiting to surprise you around each corner. 

The disgraceful truth is that one man does n’t seem 
quite enough for me. I like the variety of sensation 
that you get only from a variety of men. I’m afraid 
I’ve spent too flirtatious a youth, and it is n’t easy 
for me to settle. 

I seem to have a very wandering pen. To return: 
I saw you off, and took the ferry back to New York 
with a horribly empty feeling. After our intimate, 
gossipy three months together, it seems a terrible task 
to tell you my troubles in tones that will reach to the 
bottom of the continent. My ferry slid right under 
the nose of your steamer, and I could see you and 
Jervis plainly leaning on the rail. I waved frantically, 
but you never blinked an eyelash. Your gaze was 


DEAR ENEMY 


275 

fixed in homesick contemplation upon the top of the 
Woolworth Building. 

Back in New York, I took myself to a department 
store to accomplish a few trifles in the way of shop¬ 
ping. As I was entering through their revolving- 
doors, who should be revolving in the other direction 
but Helen Brooks! We had a terrible time meeting, 
as I tried to go back out, and she tried to come back 
in; I thought we should revolve eternally. But we 
finally got together and shook hands, and she oblig¬ 
ingly helped me choose fifteen dozen pairs of stockings 
and fifty caps and sweaters and two hundred union 
suits, and then we gossiped all the way up to Fifty- 
second Street, where we had luncheon at the Women’s 
University Club. 

I always liked Helen. She’s not spectacular, but 
steady and dependable. Will you ever forget the way 
she took hold of that senior pageant committee and 
whipped it into shape after Mildred had made such a 
mess of it? How would she do here as a successor 
to me? I am filled with jealousy at the thought of a 
successor, but I suppose I must face it. 

“ When did you last see Judy Abbott? ” was Helen’s 
first question. 

“ Fifteen minutes ago,” said I. “ She has just set 
sail for the Spanish main witjr a husband and daugh¬ 
ter and nurse and maid and valet and dog.” 

“ Has she a nice husband? 

“ None better.” 


276 


DEAR ENEMY 


“ And does she still like him? ” 

“ Never saw a happier marriage.” 

It struck me that Helen looked a trifle bleak, and 
I suddenly remembered all that gossip that Marty 
Keene told us last summer; so I hastily changed the 
conversation to a perfectly safe subject like orphans. 

But later she told me the whole story herself in as 
detached and impersonal a way as though she were dis¬ 
cussing the characters in a book. She has been living 
alone in the city, hardly seeing any one, and she 
seemed low in spirits and glad to talk. Poor Helen 
appears to have made an awful mess of her life. I 
don’t know any one who has covered so much ground 
in such a short space of time. Since her graduation 
she has been married, has had a baby and lost him, 
divorced her husband, quarreled with her family, and 
come to the city to earn her own living. She is read¬ 
ing manuscript for a publishing house. 

There seems to have been no reason for her divorce 
from the ordinary point of view; the marriage just 
simply did n’t work. They were n’t friends. If he 
had been a woman, she would n’t have wasted half an 
hour talking with him. If she had been a man, he 
would have said: “ Glad to see you. How are 
you ? ” and gone on. And yet they married. Is n’t 
it dreadful how blind this sex business can make 
people ? 

She was brought up on the theory that a woman’s 
only legitimate profession is home-making. When 


DEAR ENEMY 


277 


she finished college, she was naturally eager to start 
on her career, and Henry presented himself. Her 
family scanned him closely, and found him perfect in 
every respect — good family, good morals, good finan- ^ 
cial position, good-looking. Helen was in love with 
him. She had a big wedding and lots of new clothes 
and dozens of embroidered towels. Everything 
looked propitious. 

But as they began to get acquainted, they did n’t like 
the same books or jokes or people or amusements. He 
was expansive and social and hilarious, and she was n’t. 
First they bored, and then they irritated, each other. 
Her orderliness made him impatient, and his disorder- 
liness drove her wild. She would spend a day getting 
closets and bureau drawers in order, and in five min¬ 
utes he would stir them into chaos. He would leave 
his clothes about for her to pick up, and his towels 
in a messy heap on the bath-room floor, and he never 
scrubbed out the tub. And she, on her side, was aw¬ 
fully unresponsive and irritaitng,— she realized it 
fully,— she got to the point where she would n’t laugh 
at his jokes. 

I suppose most old-fashioned, orthodox people 
would think it awful to break up a marriage on such 
innocent grounds. It seemed so to me at first; but as 
she went on piling up detail on detail, each trivial in 
itself, but making a mountainous total, I agreed with 
Helen that it was awful to keep it going. It wasn’t 
really a marriage; it was a mistake. 


278 


DEAR ENEMY 


So one morning at breakfast, when the subject of 
what they should do for the summer came up, she said 
quite casually that she thought she would go West and 
get a residence in some State where you could get a 
divorce for a respectable cause; and for the first time 
in months he agreed with her. 

You can imagine the outraged feelings of her Vic¬ 
torian family. In all the seven generations of their 
sojourn in America they have never had anything like 
this to record in the family Bible. It all comes from 
sending her to college and letting her read such dread¬ 
ful modern people as Ellen Key and Bernard Shaw. 

“ If he had only got drunk and dragged me about 
by the hair,” Helen wailed, “ it would have been legiti¬ 
mate; but because we didn’t actually throw things at 
each other, no one could see any reason for a divorce.” 

The pathetic part of the whole business is that both 
she and Henry were admirably fitted to make some one 
else happy. They just simply did n’t match each 
other; and when two people don’t match, all the cere¬ 
monies in the world can’t marry them. , 

Saturday morning. 

I meant to get this letter off two days ago; and here 
I am with volumes written, but nothing mailed. 

We’ve just had one of those miserable deceiving 
nights — cold and frosty when you go to bed, and 
warm and lifeless when you wake in the dark, smoth- 


DEAR ENEMY 


279 


ered under a mountain of blankets. By the time I 
had removed my own extra covers and plumped up my 
pillow and settled comfortably, I thought of those 
fourteen bundled-up babies in the fresh-air nursery. 
Their so-called night nurse sleeps like a top the whole 
night through. (Her name is next on the list to be ex- 
pdnged .) So I roused myself again, and made a little 
blanket-removing tour, and by the time I had finished 
I was forever awake. It is not often that I pass a 
nuit blanche; but when I do, I settle world problems. 
Is n’t it funny how much keener your mind is when 
you are lying awake in the dark? 

I began thinking about Helen Brooks, and I planned 
her whole life over again. I don’t know why her mis¬ 
erable story has taken such a hold over me; it’s a dis¬ 
heartening subject for an engaged girl to contemplate. 
I keep saying to myself, What if Gordon and I, when 
we really get acquainted, should change our minds 
about liking each other? The fear grips my heart and 
wrings it dry. But I am marrying him for no reason 
in the world except affection. I’m not particularly 
ambitious. Neither his position nor his money ever 
tempted me in the least; and certainly I am not doing 
it to find my life-work, for in order to marry I am 
having to give up the work that I love. I really do 
love this work; I go about planning and planning their 
baby futures, feeling that I’m constructing the nation. 
Whatever becomes of me in after life, I am sure I ’ll 
be the more capable for having had this tremendous 



28 o 


DEAR ENEMY 


experience. And it is a tremendous experience, the 
nearness to humanity that an asylum brings. I am 
learning so many new things every day that when each 
Saturday night comes I look back on the Sallie of last 
Saturday night, amazed at her ignorance. 

You know I am developing a funny old characteris¬ 
tic ; I am getting to hate change. I don’t like the pros¬ 
pect of having my life disrupted. I used to love the 
excitement of volcanoes, but now a high level plateau 
is my choice in landscape. I am very comfortable 
where I am; my desk and closet and bureau drawers 
are organized to suit me; and, oh, I dread unspeakably 
the thought of the upheaval that is going to happen to 
me next year! Please don’t imagine that I don’t care 
for Gordon quite as much as any man has a right to 
be cared for. It is n’t that I like him any the less, 
but I am getting to like orphans the more. 

I just met our medical adviser a few minutes ago 
as he was emerging from the nursery — Allegra is the 
only person in the institution who is favored by his 
austere social attentions. He paused in passing to 
make a polite comment upon the sudden change in the 
weather, and to express the hope that I would remem¬ 
ber him to Mrs. Pendleton when I wrote. 

This is a miserable letter to send off on its travels, 
with scarcely a word of the kind of news that you like 
to hear. But our bare little orphan-asylum up in the 
hills must seem awfully far away from the palms and 


DEAR ENEMY 


281 


orange-groves and lizards and tarantulas that you are 
enjoying. 

Have a good time, and don’t forget the John Grier 
Home 


and 


December n. 


Dear Judy: 

Your Jamaica letter is here, and I’m glad to learn 
that Judy, Junior, enjoys traveling. Write me every 
detail about your house, and send some photographs, 
so I can see you in it. What fun it must be to have 
a boat of your own that chugs about those entertain¬ 
ing seas! Have you worn all of your eighteen white 
dresses yet ? And are n’t you glad now that I made 
you wait about buying a Panama hat till you reached 
Kingston ? 

We are running along here very much as usual with¬ 
out anything exciting to chronicle. You remember 
little Maybelle Fuller, don’t you — the chorus girl’s 
daughter whom our doctor doesn’t like? We have 
placed her out. I tried to make the woman take Hattie 
Heaphy instead,— the quiet little one who stole the 
communion-cup,— but no, indeed! Maybelle’s eye¬ 
lashes won the day. After all, as poor Marie says, the 
chief thing is to be pretty. All else in life depends on 
that. 

When I got home last week, afte~ my dash to New 
York, I made a brief speech to the children. I told 
them that I had just been seeing Aunt Judy off on a 
big ship, and I am embarrassed to have to report that 
282 


DEAR ENEMY 


283 


the interest — at least on the part of the boys — im¬ 
mediately abandoned Aunt Judy,and centered upon 
the ship. How many tons of coai did she burn a day? 
Was she long enough to reach from the carriage-house 
to the Indian camp? Were there any guns aboard, 
and if a privateer should attack her, could she hold 
her own ? In case of a mutiny, could the captain shoot 
down anybody he chose, and would n’t he be hanged 
when he got to shore? I had ignominiously to call 
upon Sandy to finish my speech. I realize that the 
best-equipped feminine mind in the world can’t cope 
with the peculiar class of questions that originate in 
a thirteen-year boy’s brain. 

As a result of their seafaring interest, the doctor 
conceived the idea of inviting seven of the oldest and 
most alert lads to spend the day with him in New 
York and see with their own eyes an ocean-liner. 
They rose at five yesterday morning, caught the 7130 
train, and had the most wonderful adventure that has 
happened in all their seven lives. They visited one of 
'the big liners (Sandy knows the Scotch engineer), 
and were conducted from the bottom of the hold to 
the top of the crow’s-nest, and then had luncheon on 
board. And after luncheon they visited the aquarium 
and the top of the Singer Building, and took the sub¬ 
way up-town to spend an hour with the birds of 
America in their habitats. Sandy with great difficulty 
pried them away from the Natural History Museum 
in time to catch the 6:15 train. Dinner in the dining- 


284 


DEAR ENEMY 


car. They inquired with great particularity how much 
it was costing, and when they heard that it was the 
same, no matter how much you ate, they drew deep 
breaths and settled quietly and steadily to the task of 
not allowing their host to be cheated. The railroad 
made nothing on that party, and all the tables around 
stopped eating to stare. One traveler asked the doctor 
if it was a boarding-school he had in charge; so you 
can see how the manners and bearing of our lads have 
picked up. I don’t wish to boast, but no one would 
ever have asked such a question concerning seven of 
Mrs. Lippett’s youngsters. “ Are they bound for a 
reformatory?” would have been the natural question 
after observing the table manners of her offspring. 

My little band tumbled in toward ten o’clock, excit¬ 
edly babbling a mess of statistics about reciprocating 
compound engines and water-tight bulkheads, devil¬ 
fish and sky-scrapers and birds of paradise. I thought 
I should never get them to bed. And, oh, but they had 
had a glorious day! I do wish I could manage breaks 
in the routine oftener. It gives them a new outlook* 
on life and makes them more like normal children. 
Was n’t it really nice of Sandy? But you should have 
seen that man’s behavior when I tried to thank him. 
He waved me aside in the middle of a sentence, and 
growlingly asked Miss Snaith if she couldn’t econo¬ 
mize a little on carbolic acid. The house smelt like a 
hospital. 

I must tell you that Punch is back with us again, 



DEAR ENEMY 


285 


entirely renovated as to manners. I am looking for 
a family to adopt him. I had hoped those two intelli¬ 
gent spinsters would see their way to keeping him 
forever, but they want to travel, and they feel he ’s 
too consuming of their liberty. I inclose a sketch in 
colored chalk of your steamer, which he has just com¬ 
pleted. There is some doubt as to the direction in 
which it is going; it looks as though it might progress 
backward and end in Brooklyn. Owing to the loss of 
my blue pencil, our flag has had to adopt the Italian 
colors. 




The three figures on the bridge are you and Jervis 
and the baby. I am pained to note that you carry 
your daughter by the back of her neck, as if she were 












286 


DEAR ENEMY 


a kitten. That is not the way we handle babies in the 
J. G. H. nursery. Please also note that the artist has 
given Jervis his full due in the matter of legs. When 
I asked Punch what had become of the captain, he 
said that the captain was inside, putting coal on the 
fire. Punch was terribly impressed, as well he might 
be, when he heard that your steamer burned three 
hundred wagon-loads a day, and he naturally supposed 
that all hands had been piped to the stoke-hole. 

BOW! WOW! 

That ’s a bark from Sing. I told him I was writing 
to you, and he responded instantly. 

We both send love. 

Yours, 

Sallie. 


The John Grier Home, 

Saturday. 

Dear Enemy: 

You were so terribly gruff last night when I tried 
to thank you for giving my boys such a wonderful 
day that I did n’t have a chance to express half of the 
appreciation I felt. 

What on earth is the matter with you, Sandy? You 
used to be a tolerably nice man — in spots, but these 
last three or four months you have only been nice to 
other people, never to me. 

We have had from the first a long series of misun¬ 
derstandings and foolish contretemps, but after each 
one we seemed to reach a solider basis of understand¬ 
ing, until I had thought our friendship was on a pretty 
firm foundation, capable of withstanding any reason¬ 
able shock. 

And then came that unfortunate evening last June 
when you overheard some foolish impolitenesses, 
which I did not in the slightest degree mean; and 
from then on you faded into the distance. Really, I 
have felt terribly bad about it, and have wanted to 
apologize, but your manner has not been inviting of 
confidence. It isn’t that I have any excuse or ex- 
287 


288 


DEAR ENEMY 


planation to offer; I have n’t. You know how foolish 
and silly I am on occasions, but you will just have to 
realize that though I’m flippant and foolish and trivial 
on top, I am pretty solid inside; and you’ve got to 
forgive the silly part. The Pendletons knew that long 
ago, or they wouldn’t have sent me up here. I have 
tried hard to pull off an honest job, partly because I 
wanted to justify their judgment, partly because I was 
really interested in giving the poor little kiddies their 
share of happiness, but mostly, I actually believe, be¬ 
cause I wanted to show you that your first derogatory 
opinion of me was ill founded. Won’t you please ex¬ 
punge that unfortunate fifteen minutes at the porte- 
cochere last June, and remember instead the fifteen 
hours I spent reading the Kallikak Family? 

I would like to feel that we ’re friends again. 

Sallie McBride. 


Dear Dr. 'MacRae: 


The John Grier Home, 

Sunday. 


I am in receipt of your calling card with an eleven- 
word answer to my letter on the back. I did n’t mean 
to annoy you by my attentions. What you think and 
how you behave are really matters of extreme indif¬ 
ference to me. Be just as impolite as you choose. 


S. McB. 



December 14. 


Dear Judy: 

Please pepper your letters with stamps, inside and 
out. I have thirty collectors in the family. Since you 
have taken to travel, every day about post-time an 
eager group gathers at the gate, waiting to snatch any 
letters of foreign design, and by the time the letters 
reach me they are almost in shreds through the te¬ 
nacity of rival snatchers. Tell Jervis to send us some 
more of those purple pine-trees from Honduras; like¬ 
wise some green parrots from Guatemala. I could use 
a pint of them! 

Is n’t it wonderful to have got these apathetic little 
things so enthusiastic ? My children are getting to be 
almost like real children. B dormitory started a pil¬ 
low-fight last night of its own accord; and though it 
was very wearing to our scant supply of linen, I stood 
by and beamed, and even tossed a pillow myself. 

Last Saturday those two desirable friends of Percy’s 
spent the whole afternoon playing with my boys. 
They brought up three rifles, and each man took the 
lead of a camp of Indians, and passed the afternoon 
in a bottle-shooting contest, with a prize for the win¬ 
ning camp. They brought the prize with them — an 
atrocious head of an Indian painted on leather. 

289 


290 


DEAR ENEMY 


Dreadful taste; but the men thought it lovely, so I ad¬ 
mired it with all the ardor I could assume. 



When they had finished, I warmed them up with 
cookies and hot chocolate, and I really think the men 
enjoyed it as much as the boys; they undoubtedly en- 






















DEAR ENEMY 


291 


joyed it more than I did. I could n't help being in a 
feminine twitter all the time the firing was going on 
for fear somebody would shoot somebody else. But I 
know that I can’t keep twenty-four Indians tied to my 
apron-strings, and I never could find in the whole wide 
world three nicer men to take an interest in them. 

Just think of all that healthy, exuberant volunteer 
service going to waste under the asylum’s nose! I 
suppose the neighborhood is full of plenty more of it, 
and I am going to make it my business to dig it out. 

What I want most are about eight nice, pretty, sen¬ 
sible young women to come up here one night a week, 
and sit before the fire and tell stories while the chicks 
pop corn. I do so want to contrive a little individual 
petting for my babies. You see, Judy, I am remember¬ 
ing your own childhood, and am trying hard to fill in 
the gaps. 

The trustees’ meeting last week went beautifully. 
The new women are most helpful, and only the nice 
men came. I am happy to announce that the Hon. Cy 
Wykoff is visiting his married daughter in Scranton. 
I wish she would invite father to live with her per¬ 
manently. 


Wednesday. 

I am in the most childish temper with the doctor, 
and for no very definite reason. He keeps along his 
even, unemotional way without paying the slightest 


292 


DEAR ENEMY 


attention to anything or anybody. I have swallowed 
more slights during these last few months than in the 
whole of my life before, and I’m developing the most 
shockingly revengeful nature. I spend all my spare 
time planning situations in which he will be terribly 
hurt and in need of my help, and in which I, with the 
utmost callousness, will shrug my shoulders and turn 
away. I am growing into a person entirely foreign to 
the sweet, sunny young thing you used to know. 


Evening. 

Do you realize that I am an authority on the care of 
dependent children? To-morrow I and other authori¬ 
ties visit officially the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian So¬ 
ciety’s Orphan Asylum at Pleasantville. (All that’s 
its name!) It’s a terribly difficult and roundabout 
journey from this point, involving a daybreak start 
and two trains and an automobile; but if I’m to be an 
authority, I must live up to the title. I’m keen about 
•looking over other institutions and gleaning as many 
ideas as possible against our own alterations next year. 
And this Pleasantville asylum is an architectural model. 

I acknowledge now, upon sober reflection, that we 
were wise to postpone extensive building operations 
until next summer. Of course I was disappointed, 
because it meant that I won’t be the center of the rip¬ 
ping-up, and I do so love to be the center of ripping- 
ups ! But, anyway, you ’ll take my advice, even 


DEAR ENEMY 


293 


though I’m no longer an official head ? The two 
building details we did accomplish are very promising. 
Our new laundry grows better and better; it has re¬ 
moved from us that steamy smell so dear to asylums. 
The farmer’s cottage will finally be ready for occu¬ 
pancy next week. All it now lacks is a coat of paint 
and some door-knobs. 

But, oh dear! oh dear! another bubble has burst! 
Mrs. Turnfelt, for all her comfortable figure and 
sunny smile, hates to have children messing about. 
They make her nervous. And as for Turnfelt him¬ 
self, though industrious and methodical and an ex¬ 
cellent gardener, still, his mental processes are not 
quite what I had hoped for. When he first came, I 
made him free of the library. He began at the case 
nearest the door, which contains thirty-seven volumes 
of Pansy’s works. Finally, after he had spent four 
months on Pansy, I suggested a change, and sent him 
home with “ Huckleberry Finn.” But he brought it 
back in a few days, and shook his head. He says that 
after reading Pansy, anything else seems tame. I am 
afraid I shall have to look about for some one a little 
more up-and-coming. But at least, compared with 
Sterry, Turnfelt is a scho l a r d [ 

And speaking of Sterry, he paid us a social call a 
few days ago, in quite a chastened frame of mind. It 
seems that the “ rich city feller ” whose estate he has 
been managing no longer needs his services; and Sterry 
has graciously consented to return to us and let the chil- 


294 


DEAR ENEMY 


dren have gardens if they wish. I kindly, but convinc¬ 
ingly, declined his offer. 

Friday. 

I came back from Pleasantville last night with a 
heart full of envy. Please, Mr. President, I want 
some gray stucco cottages, with Luca della Robbia fig¬ 
ures baked into the front. They have nearly 700 chil¬ 
dren there, and all sizable youngsters. Of course that 
makes a very different problem from my hundred and 
seven, ranging from babyhood up. But I borrowed 
from their superintendent several very fancy ideas. 
I’m dividing my chicks into big and little sisters and 
brothers, each big one to have a little one to love and 
help and fight for. Big sister Sadie Kate has to see 
that little sister Gladiola always has her hair neatly 
combed and her stockings pulled up and knows her 
lessons and gets a touch of petting and her share of 
candy — very pleasant for Gladiola, but especially de¬ 
veloping for Sadie Kate. 

Also I am going to start among our older children a 
limited form of self-government such as we had in col¬ 
lege. That will help fit them to go out into the world 
and govern themselves when they get there. This 
shoving children into the world at the age of sixteen 
seems terribly merciless. Five of my children are 
ready to be shoved, but I can’t bring myself to do it. 
I keep remembering my own irresponsible silly young 


DEAR ENEMY 


295 


self, and wondering what would have happened to me 
had I been turned out to work at the age of sixteen! 

I must leave you now to write an interesting letter 
to my politician in Washington, and it’s hard work. 
What have I to say that will interest a politician? I 
can’t do anything any more but babble about babies, 
and he wouldn’t care if every baby was swept from 
the face of the earth. Oh, yes, he would, too! I’m 
afraid I’m slandering him. Babies — at least boy 
babies — grow into voters. 


Good-by, 

Sallie. 


Dearest Judy: 

* fj 

If you expect a cheerful letter from me the day, 
don’t read this. The life of man is a wintry road. 
Fog, snow, rain, slush, drizzle, cold — such weather! 
such weather! And you in dear Jamaica with the sun¬ 
shine and the orange-blossoms! 

We ’ve got whooping-cough, and you can hear us 
whoop when you get off the train two miles away. 
We don’t know how we got it — just one of the pleas¬ 
ures of institution life. Cook has left,— in the 
night,— what the Scotch call a “ mponlicht flitting.” 
I don’t know how she got her trunk away, but it’s 
gone. The kitchen fire went with her. The pipes are 
frozen. The plumbers are here, and the kitchen fjdor 
is all ripped up. One of our horses has the ^spavin^ 
And, to crown all, our cheery, resourceful Percy is 
down, down, down in the depths of despair. We have 
not been quite certain for three days past whether we 
could keep him from suicide. The girl in Detroit,— I 
knew she was a heartless little minx,— without so 
much as going through the formality of sending back 
his ring, has gone and married herself to a man and 
a couple of automobiles and a yacht. It is the best 
thing that could ever have happened to Percy, but it 
will be a long, long time before he realizes it. 

We have our twenty-four Indians back in the house 
with us. I was sorry to have to bring them in, but the 
296 



DEAR ENEMY 


297 


shacks were scarcely planned for winter quarters. I 
have stowed them away very comfortably, however, 
thanks, to the spacious iron verandas surrounding our 
new fire-escape. It was a happy idea of Jervis’s 
having them glassed in for sleeping-porches. The ba¬ 
bies’ sun-parlor is a wonderful addition to our nursery. 
We can fairly see the little tots bloom under the influ¬ 
ence of that extra air and sunshine. 

With the return of the Indians to civilized life, 
Percy’s occupation was ended, and he was supposed to 
remove himself to the hotel. But he did n’t want to 
remove himself. He has got used to orphans, he says, 
and he would miss not seeing them about. I think the 
truth is that he is feeling so miserable over his wrecked 
engagement that he is afraid to be alone; he needs 
something to occupy every waking moment out of 
banking hours. And goodness knows we ’re glad 
enough to keep him! He has been wonderful with 
those youngsters, and they need a man’s influence. 
But what on earth to do with the man? As you dis¬ 
covered last summer, this spacious chateau does not 
contain a superabundance of guest-rooms. He has 
finally fitted himself into the doctor’s laboratory, and 
the medicines have moved themselves to a closet down 
the hall. He and the doctor fixed it up between them, 
and if they are willing to be mutually inconvenienced, 
I have no fault to find. 

Mercy! I’ve just looked at the calendar, and it’s 
the eighteenth, with Christmas only a week away. 


298 


DEAR ENEMY 


However shall we finish all our plans in a week ? The 
chicks are making presents for one another, and some¬ 
thing like a thousand secrets have been whispered in 
my ear. 

Snow last night. The boys have spent the morn¬ 
ing in the woods, gathering evergreens and drawing 
them home on sleds; and twenty girls are spending the 
afternoon in the laundry, winding wreaths for the 
windows. I don’t know how we are going to do our 
washing this week. We were planning to keep the 
Christmas-tree a secret, but fully fifty children have 
been boosted up to the carriage-house window to take 
a peep at it, and I am afraid the news has spread 
among the remaining fifty. 

At your insistence, we have sedulously fostered the 
Santa Claus myth, but it does n’t meet with much cre¬ 
dence. “Why didn’t he ever come before?” was 
Sadie Kate’s skeptical question. But Santa Claus is 
undoubtedly coming this time. I asked the doctor, 
out of politeness, to play the chief role at our Christ¬ 
mas-tree; and being certain ahead of time that he was 
going to refuse. I had already engaged Percy as an 
understudy. But there is no counting on a Scotch¬ 
man. Sandy accepted with unprecedented gracious¬ 
ness, and I had privately to unengage Percy! 

Tuesday. 

Is n’t it funny, the way some inconsequential people 
have of pouring out whatever happens to be churning 


DEAR ENEMY 


299 


about in their minds at the moment? They seem to 
have no residue of small talk, and are never able to 
dismiss a crisis in order to discuss the weather. 

This is apropos of a call I received to-day. A 
woman had come to deliver her sister’s child — sister 
in a sanatorium for tuberculosis; we to keep the child 
until the mother is cured, though I fear, from what I 
hear, that will never be. But, anyway, all the arrange¬ 
ments had been made, and the woman had merely to 
hand in the little girl and retire. But having a couple 
of hours between trains, she intimated a desire to look 
about, so I showed her the kindergarten-rooms and the 
little crib that Lily will occupy, and our yellow dining¬ 
room, with its frieze of bunnies, in order that she 
might report as many cheerful details as possible to 
the poor mother. After this, as she seemed tired, I 
socially asked her to walk into my parlor and have a 
cup of tea. Doctor MacRae, being at hand and in a 
hungry mood (a rare state for him; he now conde¬ 
scends to a cup of tea with the officers of this institu¬ 
tion about twice a month), came, too, and we had a lit¬ 
tle party. 

The woman seemed to feel that the burden of enter¬ 
tainment rested upon her, and by way of making con¬ 
versation, she told us that her husband had fallen in 
love with the girl who sold tickets at a moving-picture 
show (a painted, yellow-haired thing who chewed gum 
like a cow, was her description of the enchantress), 
and he spent all of his money on the girl, and never 


3 °° 


DEAR ENEMY 


came home except when he was drunk. Then he 
smashed the furniture something awful. An easel, 
with her mother’s picture on it, that she had had since 
before she was married, he had thrown down just for 
the pleasure of hearing it crash. And finally she had 
just got too tired to live, so she drank a bottle of 
swamp-root because somebody had told her it was poi¬ 
son if you took it all at once. But it did n’t kill her; 
it only made her sick. And he came back, and said 
he would choke her if she ever tried that on him again; 
so she guessed he must still care something for her. 
All this quite casually while she stirred her tea. 

I trieebdo think of something to say, but it was a 
social exigency that left me dumb. But Sandy rose 
to the occasion like a gentleman. He talked to her 
beautifully and sanely, and sent her away actually up¬ 
lifted. Our Sandy, when he tries, can be exceptionally 
nice, particularly to people who have no claim upon 
him. I suppose it is a matter of professional etiquette 
— part of a doctor’s business to heal the spirit as well 
as the body. Most spirits appear to need it in this 
world. My caller has left me needing it. I have been 
wondering ever since what I should do if I married a 
man who deserted me for a chewing-gum girl, and 
who came home and smashed the bric-a-brac. I sup¬ 
pose, judging from the theaters this winter, that it is 
a thing that might happen to any one, particularly in 
the best society. 

You ought to be thankful you ’ve got Jervis. There 


DEAR ENEMY 


3 01 


is something awfully certain about a man like him. 
The longer I live, the surer I am that character is the 
only thing that counts. But how on earth can you 
ever tell ? Men are so good at talking! 

Good-by, and a merry Christmas to Jervis and both 
Judies. 

S. McB. 

p.s. It would be a pleasant attention if you would an¬ 
swer my letters a little more promptly. 



John Grier Home, 

December 29. 

Dear Judy: 

Sadie Kate has spent the week composing a Christ¬ 
mas letter to you, and it leaves nothing for me to tell. 
Oh, we’ve had a wonderful time! Besides all the 
presents and games and fancy things to eat, we have 
had hay-rides and skating-parties and candy-pulls. I 
don’t know whether these pampered little orphans will 
ever settle down again into normal children. 

Many thanks for my six gifts. I like them all, par¬ 
ticularly the picture of Judy, Junior; the tooth adds a 
pleasant touch to her smile. 

You ’ll be glad to hear that I ’ve placed out Hattie 
Heaphy in a minister’s family, and a dear family they 
are; they never blinked an eyelash when I told them 
about the communion-cup. They’ve given her to 
themselves for a Christmas present, and she went off 
so happily, clinging to her new father’s hand! 

I won’t write more now, because fifty children are 
writing thank-you letters, and poor Aunt Judy will be 
buried beneath her mail when this week’s steamer gets 
in. 

My love to the Pendletons. 

S. McB. 

p.s. Singapore sends his love to Togo, and is sorry 
he bit him on the ear. 


302 


John Grier Home, 

December 30. 

O, dear, Gordon, I have been reading the most up¬ 
setting book! 

I tried to talk some French the other day, and not 
making out very well, decided that I had better take 
my French in hand if I did n’t want to lose it entirely. 
That Scotch doctor of ours has mercifully abandoned 
my scientific education, so I have a little time at my 
own disposal/ By some unjucky.xhance I began with 
“ NFma E^tmiestan,” by Daud^t It is a terribly dis¬ 
turbing book for a girl to read who is engaged to a 
politician. Read it, Gordon dear, and assiduously 
train your character away from Numa’s. It’s the 
story of a politician who is disquietingly fascinating 
(like you). Who is adored by all who know him 
(like you). Who has a most persuasive way of talk-1 
ing and makes wonderful speeches (again like you). 
He is worshiped by everybody, and they all say to his 
wife, “ What a happy life you must lead, knowing so 
intimately that wonderful man! ” 

But he was n’t very wonderful when he came home 
to her — only when he had an audience and applause. 
He would drink with every casual acquaintance, and be. 
gay and bubbling and expansive; and then return mo* 
303 


3°4 


DEAR ENEMY 


rose and sullen and down. “ Joie de rue, douleur de 
maison,” is the burden of the book. 

I read it till twelve last night, and honestly I did n’t 
sleep for being scared. I know you ’ll be angry, but 
really and truly, Gordon dear, there’s just a touch too 
much truth in it for my entire amusement. I did n’t 
mean even to refer again to that unhappy matter of 
August 20,— we talked it all out at the time,— but 
you know perfectly that you need a bit of watching. 
And I don’t like the idea. I want to have a feeling 
of absolute confidence and stability about the man I 
marry. I never could live in a state of anxious wait¬ 
ing for him to come home. 

Read “ Numa ” for yourself, and you ’ll see the 
woman’s point of view. I’m not patient or meek or 
long-suffering in any way, and I’m a little afraid of 
what I’m capable of doing if I have the provocation. 
My heart has to be in a thing in order to make it work, 
and, oh, I do so want our marriage to work! 

Please forgive me for writing all this. I don’t 
mean that I really think you ’ll be a “ joy of the street, 
and sorrow of the home.” It’s just that I did n’t sleep 
last night, and I feel sort of hollow behind the eyes. 

May the year that’s coming bring good counsel and 
happiness and tranquillity to both of us! 


As ever, 



I 


January i. 


Dear Judy: 

Something terribly sort of queer has happened, and 
positively I don’t know whether it did happen or 
whether I dreamed it. I ’ll tell you from the begin¬ 
ning, and I think it might be as well if you burned this 
letter; it’s not quite proper for Jervis’s eyes. 

You remember my telling you the case of Thomas 
Kehoe, whom we placed out last June ? He had an al¬ 
coholic heredity on both sides, and as a baby seems to 
have been fattened on beer instead of milk. He en¬ 
tered the John Grier at the age of nine, and twice, ac¬ 
cording to his record in the Doomsday Book, he man¬ 
aged to get himself intoxicated, once on beer stolen 
from some workmen, and once (and thoroughly) on 
cooking brandy. You can see with what misgivings 
we placed him out; but we warned the family (hard¬ 
working temperate farming-people) and hoped for the 
best. 

Yesterday the family telegraphed that they could 
keep him no longer. Would I please meet him on the 
six o’clock train? Turnfelt met the six o’clock train. 
No boy. I sent a night message telling of his non¬ 
arrival and asking for particulars. 

I stayed up later than usual last night putting my 
desk in order and — sort of making up my mind to 
305 


3°6 


DEAR ENEMY 


face the New Year. Toward twelve I suddenly real¬ 
ized that the hour was late and that I was very tired. 
I had begun getting ready for bed when I was startled 
by a banging on the front door. I stuck my head out 
of the window and demanded who was there. 

“ Tommy Kehoe,” said a very shaky voice. 

I went down and opened the door, and that lad, 
sixteen years old, tumbled in, dead drunk. Thank 
Heaven! Percy Witherspoon was within call, and not 
away off in the Indian camp. I roused him, and to¬ 
gether we conveyed Thomas to our guest-room, the 
only decently isolated spot in the building. Then I 
telephoned for the doctor, who, I am afraid, had al¬ 
ready had a long day. He came, and we put in a 
pretty terrible night. It developed afterward that the 
boy had brought along with his luggage a bottle of 
liniment belonging to his employer. It was made half 
of alcohol and half of witch-hazel; and Thomas had re¬ 
freshed his journey with this! 

He was in such shape that positively I did n’t think 
we’d pull him through — and I hoped we would n’t. 
If I were a physician, I’d let such cases gently slip 
away for the good of society; but you should have seen 
Sandy work! That terrible life-saving instinct of his 
was aroused, and he fought with every inch of energy 
he possessed. 

I made black coffee, and helped all I could, but the 
details were pretty messy, and I left the two men to 
deal with him alone and went back to my room. But 


DEAR ENEMY 


307 


I did n’t attempt to go to bed; I was afraid they might 
be wanting me again. Toward four o’clock Sandy 
came to my library with word that the boy was asleep 
and that Percy had moved up a cot and would sleep 
in his room the rest of the night. Poor Sandy looked 
sort of ashen and haggard and done with life. As I 
looked at him, I thought about how desperately he 
worked to save others, and never saved himself, and 
about that dismal home of his, with never a touch of 
cheer, and the horrible tragedy in the background of 
his life. All the rancor I’ve been saving up seemed to 
vanish, and a wave of sympathy swept over me. I 
stretched my hand out to him; he stretched his out to 
me. And suddenly — I don’t know — something elec¬ 
tric happened. In another moment we were in each 
other’s arms. He loosened my hands, and put me 
down in the big arm-chair. “ My God! Sallie, do you 
think I’m made of iron? ” he said and walked out. I 
went to sleep in the chair, and when I woke the sun 
was shining in my eyes and Jane was standing over me 
in amazed consternation. 

This morning at eleven he came back, looked me 
coldly in the eye without so much as the flicker of an 
eyelash, and told me that Thomas was to have hot milk 
every two hours and that the spots in Maggie Peters’s 
throat must be watched. 

Here we are back on our old standing, and positively 
I don’t know but what I dreamed that one minute in 
the night! 


3°8 


DEAR ENEMY 

But it would be a piquant situation, would n’t it, if 
Sandy and I should discover that we were falling in 
love with each other, he with a perfectly good wife in 
the insane asylum and I with an outraged fiance in 
v Washington? I don’t know but what the wisest thing 
for me to do is to resign at once and take myself home, 
where I can placidly settle down to a few months of 
embroidering “ S McB ” on table-cloths, like any other 
respectable engaged girl. 

I repeat very firmly that this letter is n’t for Jervis’s 
consumption. Tear it into little pieces and scatter 
them in the Caribbean. 

S. 


January 3. 

Dear Gordon: 

You are right to be annoyed. I know I’m not a 
satisfactory love-letter writer. I have only to glance 
at the published correspondence of Elizabeth Barrett 
and Robert Browning to realize that the warmth of my 
style is not up to standard. But you know already 
— you have known a long time — that I am not a very 
emotional person. I suppose I might write a lot of 
such things as: “ Every waking moment you are in my 
thoughts/’ “ My dear boy, I only live when you are 
near.” But it would n’t be absolutely true. You 
don’t fill all my thoughts; 107 orphans do that. And 
I really am quite comfortably alive whether you are 
here or not. I have to be natural. You surely don’t 
want me to pretend more desolation than I feel. But 
I do love to see you,— you know that perfectly,— and 
I am disappointed when you can’t come. I fully ap¬ 
preciate all your charming qualities, but, my dear boy, 
I can't be sentimental on paper. I am always thinking 
about the hotel chambermaid who reads the letters you 
casually leave on your bureau. You need n’t expostu¬ 
late that you carry them next your heart, for I know 
perfectly well that you don’t. 

Forgive me for that last letter if it hurt your feel- 
309 


3 io 


DEAR ENEMY 


mgs. Since I came to this asylum I am extremely 
touchy on the subject of drink; you would be, too, if 
you had seen what I have seen. Several of my chicks 
are the sad result of alcoholic parents, and they are 
' never going to have a fair chance all their lives. You 
can’t look about a place like this without “ aye" keeping 
tap a terrible thinking.” 

You are right, I am afraid, about it ’s being a 
woman’s trick to make a great show of forgiving a 
man, and then never letting him hear the end of it. 
Well, Gordon, I positively don’t know what the word 
u forgiving ” means. It can’t include “ forgetting,” 
for that is a physiological process, and does not result 
from an act of the will. We all have a collection of 
memories that we would happily lose, but somehow 
those are just the ones that insist upon sticking. If 
“ forgiving ” means promising never to speak of a 
thing again, I can doubtless manage that. But it is n’t 
always the wisest way to shut an unpleasant memory 
inside you. It grows and grows, and runs all through 
you like a poison. 

Oh dear! I really didn’t mean to be saying all 
this. I try to be the cheerful, care-free (and some¬ 
what light-headed) Sallie you like best; but I ’ve come 
in touch with a great deal of realness during this last 
year, and I’m afraid I’ve grown into a very different 
person from the girl you fell in love with. I’m no 
longer a gay young thing playing with life. I know 


DEAR ENEMY 


311 

it pretty thoroughly now, and that means that I can’t 
be always laughing. 

I know this is another beastly uncheerful letter,— 
as bad as the last, and maybe worse,— but if you knew 
what we’ve just been through! A boy — sixteen — 
of unspeakable heredity has nearly poisoned himself 
with a disgusting mixture of alcohol and witch-hazel. 
We have been working three days over him, and are 
just sure now that he is going to recuperate sufficiently 
to do it again! “ It’s a gude warld, but they ’re ill 

that’s in’t.” 

Please excuse that Scotch — it slipped out. Please 
excuse everything. 

Sallie. 


January n. 


Dear Judy: 

I hope my two cablegrams did n’t give you too terri- ■ 
ble a shock. I would have waited to let the first news 
come by letter, with a chance for details, but I was so 
afraid you might hear it in some indirect way. The 
whole thing is dreadful enough, but no lives were lost, 
and only one serious accident. We can’t help shudder¬ 
ing at the thought of how much worse it might have 
been, with over a hundred sleeping children in this fire- 
trap of a building. That new fire-escape was abso¬ 
lutely useless. The wind was blowing toward it, 
and the flames simply enveloped it. We saved them all 
by the center stairs — but I ’ll begin at the beginning, 
and tell the whole story. 

It had rained all day Friday, thanks to a merciful 
Providence, and the roofs were thoroughly soaked. 
Toward night it began to freeze, and the rain turned 
to sleet. By ten o’clock, when I went to bed, the wind 
was blowing a terrible gale from the northwest, and 
everything loose about the building was banging and 
rattling. About two o’clock I suddenly started wide 
awake, with a bright light in my eyes. I jumped out 
of bed and ran to the window. The carriage-house 
was a mass of flames, and a shower of sparks was 
sweeping over our eastern wing. I ran to the bath- 
312 


DEAR ENEMY 


3*3 


room and leaned out of the window. I could see that 
the roof over the nursery was already blazing in half a 
dozen places. 


M 


Ca-vvi^e House. 


w 


E 



Well, my dear, my heart just simply didn’t beat for 
as much as a minute. I thought of those seventeen 
babies up under that roof, and I could n’t swallow. 
I finally managed to get my shaking knees to work 










3i4 


DEAR ENEMY 


again, and I dashed back to the hall, grabbing my au¬ 
tomobile coat as I ran. 

I drummed on Betsy’s and Miss Matthews’ and 
Miss Snaith’s doors, just as Mr. Witherspoon, who 
had also been wakened by the light, came tumbling 
upstairs three steps at a time, struggling into an over¬ 
coat as he ran. 

“ Get all the children down to the dining-room, ba¬ 
bies first,” I gasped. “ I ’ll turn in the alarm.” 

He dashed on up to the third floor while I ran to the 
telephone — and oh, I thought I’d never get Central 1 
She was sound asleep. 

“ The John Grier Home is burning! Turn in the 
fire-alarm and rouse the village. Give me 505,” I said. 

In one second I had the doctor. Maybe I wasn’t 
glad to hear his cool, unexcited voice! 

“ We ’re on fire! ” I cried. “ Come quick, and 
bring all the men you can! ” 

“ I ’ll be there in fifteen minutes. Fill the bath-tubs 
with water and put in blankets.” And he hung up. 

I dashed back to the hall. Betsy was ringing our 
fire-bell, and Percy had already routed out his Indian 
tribes in dormitories B and C. 

Our first thought was not to stop the fire, but to get 
the children to a place of safety. We began in G, 
and went from crib to crib, snatching a baby and a 
blanket, and rushing them to the door, and handing 
them out to the Indians, who lugged them down-stairs. 
Both G and F were full of smoke, and the children so 


DEAR ENEMY 


3i5 

dead asleep that we could n’t rouse them to a walking 
state. 

Many times during the next hour did I thank Provi¬ 
dence— and Percy Witherspoon — for those vocifer¬ 
ous fire-drills we have suffered weekly. The twenty- 
four oldest boys, under his direction, never lost their 
heads for a second. They divided into four tribes, 
and sprang to their posts like little soldiers. Two 
tribes helped in the work of clearing the dormitories 
and keeping the terrified children in order. One tribe 
worked the hose from the cupola tank until the firemen 
came, and the rest devoted themselves to salvage. 
They spread sheets on the floor, dumped the contents 
of lockers and bureau drawers into them, and bundled 
them down the stairs. All of the extra clothes were 
saved except those the children had actually been wear¬ 
ing the day before, and most of the staff’s things. 
But clothes, bedding — everything belonging to G and 
F went. The rooms were too full of smoke to make it 
safe to enter after we had got out the last child. 

By the time the doctor arrived with Luellen and two 
neighbors he had picked up, we were marching the last 
dormitory down to the kitchen, the most remote corner 
from the fire. The poor chicks were mainly bare¬ 
footed and wrapped in blankets; we told them to bring 
their clothes when we wakened them, but in their 
fright they thought only of getting out. 

By this time the halls were so full of smoke we could 
scarcely breathe. It looked as though the whole build- 


DEAR ENEMY 


3 l6 

ing would go, though the wind was blowing away from 
my west wing. 

Another automobile full of retainers from Knowl- / / 
top came up almost immediately, and they all fell to 
fighting the fire. The regular fire department did n’t 
come for ten minutes after that. You see, they have 
only horses, and we are three miles out, and the roads 
pretty bad. It was a dreadful night, cold and sleety, 
and such a wind blowing that you could scarcely stand 
up. The men climbed out on the roof, and worked in 
their stocking-feet to keep from slipping off. They 
beat out the sparks with wet blankets, and chopped, 
and squirted that tankful of water, and behaved like 
heroes. 

The doctor meanwhile took charge of the children. 
Our first thought was to get them away to a place of 
safety, for if the whole building should go, we 
couldn’t march them out of doors into that awful 
wind, with only their night-clothes and blankets for 
protection. By this time several more automobiles full 
of men had come, and we requisitioned the cars. 

Knowltop had providentially been opened for the 
week-end in order to entertain a house-party in honor 
of the old gentleman’s sixty-seventh birthday. He 
was one of the first to arrive, and he put his entire 
place at our disposal. It was the nearest refuge, and 
we accepted it instantaneously. We bundled our 
twenty littlest tots into cars, and ran them down to 
the house. The guests, who were excitedly dressing 




DEAR ENEMY 


3i7 


in order to come to the fire, received the chicks and 
tucked them away into their own beds. This pretty 
well filled up all the available house room, but Mr. 
Rej mer (Mr. Knowltop’s family name) has just built 
a big new stucco barn, with a garage hitched to it, all 
nicely heated, and ready for us. 

After the babies were disposed of in the house, those 
helpful guests got to work and fixed the barn to re¬ 
ceive the next older kiddies. They covered the floor 
with hay, and spread blankets and carriage robes over 
it, and bedded down thirty of the children in rows like 
little calves. Miss Matthews and a nurse went with 
them, administered hot milk all around, and within 
half an hour the tots were sleeping as peacefully as in 
their little cribs. 

But meanwhile we at the house were having sensa¬ 
tions. The doctor’s first question upon arrival had 
been: 

“ You’ve counted the children? You know they ’re 
all here ? ” 

1 “ We’ve made certain that every dormitory was 

empty before we left it,” I replied. 

You see, they could n’t be counted in that confusion; 
twenty or so of the boys were still in the dormitories, 
working under Percy Witherspoon to save clothing 
and furniture, and the older girls were sorting over- 
bushels of shoes and trying to fit them to the little ones, 
who were running about underfoot and wailing dis¬ 
mally. 



3i8 


DEAR ENEMY 


Well, after we had loaded and despatched about 
seven car-loads of children, the doctor suddenly called 
out: 

“Where’s Allegra?” 

There was a horrified silence. No one had seen her. 
And then Miss Snaith stood up and shrieked. Betsy 
took her by the shoulders; and shook her into coher¬ 
ence. 

It seems that she had thought Allegra was coming 
down with a cough, and in order to get her out of the 
cold, had moved her crib from the fresh-air nursery 
into the store-room — and then forgotten it. 

Well, my dear, you know where the store-room is! 
We simply stared at one another with white faces. 
By this time the whole east wing was gutted and the 
third-floor stairs in flames. There did n’t seem a 
chance that the child was still alive. The doctor was 
the first to move. He snatched up a wet blanket that 
was lying in a soppy pile on the floor of the hall and 
sprang for the stairs. We yelled to him to come back. 
It simply looked like suicide; but he kept on, and dis¬ 
appeared into the smoke. I dashed outside and shouted ( 
to the firemen on the roof. The store-room window 
was too little for a man to go through, and they had n’t 
opened it for fear of creating a draft. 

I can’t describe what happened in the next agonizing 
ten minutes. The third-floor stairs fell in with a crash 
and a burst of flame about five seconds after the doctor 
passed over them. We had given him up for lost when 




DEAR ENEMY 


319 


a shout went up from the crowd on the lawn, and he 
appeared for an instant at one of those dormer-win¬ 
dows in the attic, and called for the firemen to put up 
a ladder. Then he disappeared, and it seemed to us 
that they’d never get that ladder in place; but they 
finally did, and two men went up. The opening of 
the window had created a draft, and they were almost 
overpowered by the volume of smoke that burst out 
at the top. After an eternity the doctor appeared 
again with a white bundle in his arms. He passed it 
out to the men, and then he staggered back and 
dropped out of sight! 

I don’t know what happened for the next few min¬ 
utes; I turned away and shut my eyes. Somehow or 
other they got him out and half-way down the ladder, 
and then they let him slip. You see, he was uncon¬ 
scious from all the smoke he’d swallowed, and the lad¬ 
der was slippery with ice and terribly wobbly. Any¬ 
way, when I looked again he was lying in a heap on the 
ground, with the crowd all running, and somebody 
yelling to give him air. They thought at first he was 
dead. But Dr. Metcalf from the village examined 
him, and said his leg was broken, and two ribs, and 
that aside from that he seemed whole. He was still 
unconscious when they put him on two of the baby 
mattresses that had been thrown out of the windows 
and laid him in the wagon that brought the ladders and 
started him home. 

And the rest of us, left behind, kept right on with 


320 


DEAR ENEMY 


the work as though nothing had happened. The queer 
thing about a calamity like this is that there is so much 
to be done on every side that you don’t have a moment 
to think, and you don’t get any of your values straight¬ 
ened out until afterward. The doctor, without a mo¬ 
ment’s hesitation, had risked his life to save Allegra. 
It was the bravest thing I ever saw, and yet the whole 
business occupied only fifteen minutes out of that 
dreadful night. At the time, it was just an incident. 

And he saved Allegra. She came out of that blan¬ 
ket with rumpled hair and a look of pleased surprise 
at the new game of peek-a-boo. She was smiling! 
The child’s escape was little short of a miracle. The 
fire had started within three feet of her wall, but owing 
to the direction of the wind, it had worked away from 
her. If Miss Snaith had believed a little more in fresh 
air and had left the window open, the fire would have 
eaten back; but fortunately Miss Snaith does not be¬ 
lieve in fresh air, and no such thing happened. If 
Allegra had gone, I never should have forgiven myself 
for not letting the Bretlands take her, and I know that 
Sandy would n’t. 

Despite all the loss, I can’t be anything but happy 
when I think of the two horrible tragedies that have 
been averted; for seven minutes, while the doctor was 
penned in that blazing third floor, I lived through the 
agony of believing them both gone, and I start awake 
in the night trembling with horror. 

But I ’ll try to tell you the rest The firemen and 


DEAR ENEMY 


321 


the volunteers — particularly the chauffeur and stable¬ 
men from Knowltop — worked all night in an absolute 
frenzy. Our newest negro cook, who is a heroine in 
her own right, went out and started the laundry fire and 
made up a broilerful of coffee. It was her own idea. 
The non-combatants served it to the firemen when they 
relieved one another for a few minutes’ rest, and it 
helped. 

We got the remainder of the children off to various 
hospitable houses, except the older boys, who worked 
all night as well as any one. It was absolutely inspir¬ 
ing to see the way this entire township turned out and 
helped. People who have n’t appeared to know that the 
asylum existed came in the middle of the night and 
put their whole houses at our disposal. They took the 
children in, gave them hot baths and hot soup, and 
tucked them into bed. And so far as I can make out, 
not one of my one hundred and seven chicks is any the 
worse for hopping about on drenched floors in their 
bare feet, not even the whooping-cough cases. 

It was broad daylight before the fire was sufficiently 
under control to let us know just what we had saved. 
I will report that my wing is entirely intact, though a 
little smoky, and the main corridor is pretty nearly all 
right up to the center staircase; after that everything 
is charred and drenched. The east wing is a blackened, 
roofless shell. Your hated Ward F, dear Judy, is gone 
forever. I wish that you could obliterate it from 
your mind as absolutely as it is obliterated from the 


322 


DEAR ENEMY 


earth. Both in substance and in spirit the old John 
Grier is done for. 

I must tell you something funny; I never saw so 
many funny things in my life as happened through that 
night. When everybody there was in extreme negli¬ 
gee, most of the men in pajamas and ulsters, and all 
of them without collars, the Hon. Cyrus Wykoff put 
in a tardy appearance, arrayed as for an afternoon tea. 
He wore a pearl scarf-pin and white spats! But he 
really was extremely helpful. He put his entire house 
at our disposal, and I turned over to him Miss Snaith 
in a state of hysterics, and her nerves so fully occu¬ 
pied him that he did n’t get in our way the whole night 
through. 

I can’t write any more details now; I’ve never been 
so rushed in the whole of my life. I ’ll just assure 
you that there’s no slightest reason for you to cut your 
trip short. Five trustees were on the spot early Sat¬ 
urday morning, and we are all working like mad to get 
affairs into some semblance of order. Our asylum 
at the present moment is scattered over the entire town¬ 
ship; but don’t be unduly anxious. We know where 
all the children are. None of them is permanently 
mislaid. I didn’t know that perfect strangers could 
be so kind. My opinion of the human race has gone 
up. 

I haven’t seen the doctor. They telegraphed to 
New York for a surgeon, who set his leg. The break 
was pretty bad, and will take time; they don’t think 



DEAR ENEMY 


3 2 3 


there are any internal injuries, though he is awfully 
battered up. As soon as we are allowed to see him I 
will send more detailed particulars. I really must stop 
if I am to catch to-morrow’s steamer. 

Good-by. Don’t worry. There are a dozen silver 
linings to this cloud that I ’ll write about to-morrow. 

Sallie. 

Good heavens! here comes an automobile with J. F. 
Bretland in it! 


The John Grier Home, 

January 14. 

Dear Judy: 

Listen to this! J. F. Bretland read about our fire 
in a New York paper (I will say that the metropolitan 
press made the most of details), and he posted up here 
in a twitter of anxiety. His first question as he 
tumbled across our blackened threshold was, “ Is 
Allegra safe? ” 

“ Yes,” said I. 

“ Thank God! ” he cried, and dropped into a chair. 
“ This is no place for children,” he said severely, “ and 
I have come to take her home. I want the boys, too,” 
he added hastily before I had a chance to speak. “ My 
wife and I have talked it over, and we have decided 
that since we are going to the trouble of starting a nurs¬ 
ery, we might as well run it for three as for one.” 

I led him up to my library, where our little family 
has been domiciled since the fire, and ten minutes later, 
when I was called down to confer with the trustees, 
I left J. F. Bretland with his new daughter on his knee 
and a son leaning against each arm, the proudest father 
in the United States. 

So, you see, our fire has accomplished one thing: 
324 



DEAR ENEMY 


3 2 5 

those three children are settled for life. It is almost 
worth the loss. 

But I don’t believe I told you how the fire started. 
There are so many things I have n’t told you that my 
arm aches at the thought of writing them all. Sterry, 
we have since discovered, was spending the week-end 
as our guest. After a Bibulous evening passed at 
“ Jack’s Place,” he returned to our carriage-house, 
climbed in through a window, lighted a candle, made 
himself comfortable, and dropped asleep. He must 
have forgotten to put out the candle; anyway, the fire 
happened, and Sterry just escaped with his life. He is 
now in the town hospital, bathed in sweet-oil, and pain¬ 
fully regretting his share in our troubles, 

I am pleased to learn that our insurance was pretty 
adequate, so the money loss won’t be so tremendous, 
after all. As for other kinds of loss, there are n’t 
any! Actually, nothing but gain so far as I can make 
out, barring, of course, our poor smashed-up doctor. 
Everybody has been wonderful; I did n’t know that 
so much charity and kindness existed in the human 
race. Did I ever say anything against trustees? I 
take it back. Four of them posted up from New York 
the morning after the fire, and all of the local people 
have been wonderful. Even the Hon. Cy has been so 
occupied in remarking the morals of the five orphans 
quartered upon him that he has n’t caused any trouble 
at all. 

The fire occurred early Saturday morning, and Sun- 



326 


DEAR ENEMY 


day the ministers in all the churches called for volmv 
teers to accept in their houses one or two children as 
guests for three weeks, until the asylum could get its 
plant into working order again. 

It was inspiring to see the response. Every child 
was disposed of within half an hour. And consider 
what that means for the future: every one of those 
families is going to take a personal interest in this 
asylum from now on. Also, consider what it means 
for the children. They are finding out how a real 
family lives, and this is the first time that dozens of 
them have ever crossed the threshold of a private 
house. 

As for more permanent plans to take us through the 
winter, listen to all this. The country club has a cad¬ 
dies’ club-house which they don’t use in winter and. 
which they have politely put at our disposal. It joins 
our land on the back, and we are fitting it up for four¬ 
teen children, with Miss Matthews in charge. Our 
dining-room and kitchen still being intact, they will 
come here for meals and school, returning home at 
night all the better for half a mile walk. “ The 
Pavilion on the Links ” we are calling it. 

Then that nice motherly Mrs. Wilson, next door to 
the doctor’s,— she who has been so efficient with our 
little Loretta,— has agreed to take in five more at four 
dollars a week each. I am leaving with her some of 
the most promising older girls who have shown house¬ 
keeping instincts, and would like to learn cooking on a 


DEAR ENEMY 


327 


decently small scale. Mrs. Wilson and her husband 
are such a wonderful couple, thrifty and industrious 
and simple and loving, I think it would do the girls 
good to observe them. A training class in wifehood! 

I told you about the Knowltop people on the east 
of us, who took in forty-seven youngsters the night 
of the fire, and how their entire house-party turned 
themselves into emergency nurse-maids? We re¬ 
lieved them of thirty-six the next day, but they still 
have eleven. Did I ever call Mr. Knowltop a crusty 
old curmudgeon? I take it back. I beg his pardon. 
He’s a sweet lamb. Now, in the time of our need, 
what do you think that blessed man has done ? He has 
fitted up an empty tenant house on the estate for our 
babies, has himself engaged an English trained baby- 
nurse to take charge, and furnishes them with the su¬ 
perior milk from his own model dairy. He says he 
has been wondering for years what to do with that 
milk. He can’t afford to sell it, because he loses four 
cents on every quart! 

The twelve older girls from dormitory A I am put¬ 
ting into the farmer’s new cottage; the poor Turnfelts, 
who had occupied it just two days, are being shoved 
on into the village. But they wouldn’t be any good 
in looking after the children, and I need their room. 
Three or four of these girls have been returned from 
foster-homes as intractable, and they require pretty 
efficient supervision. So what do you think I’ve 
done? Telegraphed to Helen Brooks to chuck the 


DEAR ENEMY 


328 

publishers and take charge of my girls instead. You 
know she will be wonderful with them. She accepted 
provisionally. Poor Helen has had enough of this 
irrevocable contract business; she wants everything in 
life to be on trial! 

For the older boys something particularly nice has 
happened; we have received a gift of gratitude from J. 
F. Bretland. He went down to thank the doctor for 
Allegra; they had a long talk about the needs of the 
institution, and J. F. B. came back and gave me a check 
for $3000 to build the Indian camps on a substantial 
scale. He and Percy and the village architect have 
drawn up plans, and in two weeks, we hope, the tribes 
will move into winter quarters. 

What does it matter if my one hundred and seven 
children have been burned out, since they live in such a 
kind-hearted world as this ? 

Friday. 

I suppose you are wondering why I don’t vouchsafe 
some details about the doctor’s condition. I can’t give 
any first-hand information, since he won’t see me. 
However, he has seen everybody except me — Betsy, 
Allegra, Mrs. Livermore, Mr. Bretland, Percy, various 
trustees; they all report that he is progressing as com¬ 
fortably as could be expected with two broken ribs and 
a fractured fibula. That, I believe, is the professional 
name of the particular leg bone he broke. He does n’t 



DEAR ENEMY 


3 2 9 


like to have a fuss made over him, and he won’t pose 
gracefully as a hero. I myself, as grateful head of 
this institution, called on several different occasions 
to present my official thanks, but I was invariably met 
at the door with word that he was sleeping and did not 
wish to be disturbed. The first two times I believed 
Mrs. McGurk; after that — well, I know our doctor! 
So when it came time to send our little maid to prattle 
her unconscious good-bys to the man who had saved 
her life, I despatched her in charge of Betsy. 

I have n’t an idea what is the matter with the man. 
He was friendly enough last week, but now, if I want 
an opinion from him, I have to send Percy to extract 
it. I do think that he might see me as the superintend¬ 
ent of the asylum, even if he does n’t wish our ac¬ 
quaintance to be on a personal basis. There is no 
doubt about it, our Sandy is Scotch! 

Later. 

It is going to require a fortune in stamps to get this 
letter to Jamaica, but I do want you to know all the 
news, and we have never had so many exhilarating 
things happen since 1876, when we were founded. 
This fire has given us such a shock that we are going - 
to be more alive for years to come. I believe that 
every institution ought to be burned to the ground 
every twenty-five years in order to get rid of old- 
fashioned equipment and obsolete ideas. I am super- 


330 


DEAR ENEMY 


latively glad now that we did n’t spend Jervis’s money 
last summer; it would have been intensively tragic to 
have had that burn. I don’t mind so much about John 
Grier’s, since he made it in a patent medicine which, 
I hear, contained opium. 

As to the remnant of us that the fire left behind, 
it is already boarded up and covered with tar-paper, 
and we are living along quite comfortably in our por¬ 
tion of a house. It affords sufficient room for the 
staff and the children’s dining-room and kitchen, and 
more permanent plans can be made later. 

Do you perceive what has happened to us? The 
good Lord has heard my prayer, and the John Grier 
Home is a cottage institution! 

I am, 

The busiest person north of the equator, 


S. McBride. 



The John Grier Home, 

January 16. 

Dear Gordon: 

Please, please behave yourself, and don’t make 
things harder than they are. It’s absolutely out of the 
question for me to give up the asylum this instant. 
You ought to realize that I can’t abandon my chicks 
just when they are so terribly in need of me. Neither 
am I ready to drop this blasted philanthropy. (You 
can see how your language looks in my handwriting!) 

You have no cause to worry. I am not overwork¬ 
ing. I am enjoying it; never was so busy and happy 
in my life. The papers made the fire out much more 
lurid than it really was. That picture of me leaping 
from the roof with a baby under each arm was over¬ 
drawn. One or two of the children have sore throats, 
and our poor doctor is in a plaster cast; but we ’re all 
alive, thank Heaven! and are going to pull through 
without permanent scars. 

I can’t write details now; I’m simply rushed to 
death. And don’t come — please! Later, when 
things have settled just a little, you and I must have a 
talk about you and me, but I want time to think about 
it first. 

S. 


33i 



January 21. 


Dear Judy: 

Helen Brooks is taking hold of those fourteen frac¬ 
tious girls in a most masterly fashion. The job is 
quite the toughest I had to offer, and she likes it. I 
think she is going to be a valuable addition to our 
staff. 

And I forgot to tell you about Punch. When the 
fire occurred, those two nice women who kept him all 
summer were on the point of catching a train for Cali¬ 
fornia — and they simply tucked him under their arms, 
along with their luggage, and carried him off. So 
Punch spends the winter in Pasadena, and I rather 
fancy he is theirs for good. Do you wonder that I 
am in an exalted mood over all these happenings ? 

Later. 

Poor bereaved Percy has just been spending the 
evening with me, because I am supposed to understand 
his troubles. Why must I be supposed to understand 
everybody’s troubles? It’s awfully wearing to be 
pouring out sympathy from an empty heart. The 
poor boy at present is pretty low, but I rather sus¬ 
pect— with Betsy’s aid — that he will pull through. 
He is just on the edge of falling in love with Betsy, 
332 


DEAR ENEMY 


333 


but he does n’t know it. He ’s in the stage now where 
he’s sort of enjoying his troubles; he feels himself a 
tragic hero, a man who has suffered deeply. But I 
notice that when Betsy is about, he offers cheerful as¬ 
sistance in whatever work is toward. 

Gordon telegraphed to-day that he is coming to-mor¬ 
row. I am dreading the interview, for I know we are 
going to have an altercation. He wrote the day after 
the fire and begged me to “ chuck the asylum ” and get 
married immediately, and now he’s coming to argue it 
out. I can’t make him understand that a job involv¬ 
ing the happiness of one hundred or so^children can’t 
be chucked with such charming insouciance. I tried 
my best to keep him away, but, like the rest of his sex, 
he’s stubborn. Oh dear, I don’t know what’s ahead 
of us! I wish I could glance into next year for a 
moment. 

The doctor is still in his plaster cast, but I hear is 
doing well, after a grumbly fashion. He is able to sit 
up a little every day and to receive a carefully selected 
list of visitors. Mrs. McGurk sorts them out at the 
door, and repudiates the ones she does n’t like. 

Good-by. I’d write some more, but I’m so sleepy 
that my eyes are shutting on me. (The idiom is Sadie 
Kate’s.) I must go to bed and get some sleep against 
the one hundred and seven troubles of to-morrow. 

With love to the Pendletons, 


S. McB. 


January 22. 

Dear Judy: 

This letter has nothing to do with the John Grier 
Home. It’s merely from Sallie McBride. 

Do you remember when we read Huxley’s letters 
our senior year ? That book contained a phrase which 
has stuck in my memory ever since: “ There is al¬ 

ways a Cape Horn in one’s life that one either weathers 
or wrecks oneself on.” It’s terribly true; and the 
trouble is that you can’t always recognize your Cape 
Horn when you see it. The sailing is sometimes pretty 
foggy, and you ’re wrecked before you know it. 

I ’ve been realizing of late that I have reached the 
Cape Horn of my own life. I entered upon my en¬ 
gagement to Gordon honestly and hopefully, but little 
by little I’ve grown doubtful of the outcome. The 
girl he loves is not the me I want to be. It’s the me 
I’ve been trying to grow away from all this last year. 
I’m not sure she ever really existed. Gordon just 
imagined she did. Anyway, she does n’t exist any 
more, and the only fair course both to him and to my¬ 
self was to end it. 

We no longer have any interests in common; we are 
not friends. He does n’t comprehend it; he thinks 
that I am making it up, that all I have to do is to 


334 


DEAR ENEMY 


335 


take an interest in his life, and everything will turn 
out happily. Of course I do take an interest when 
he’s with me. I talk about the things he wants to 
talk about, and he does n’t know that there’s a whole 
part of me — the biggest part of me — that simply, 
does n’t meet him at any point. I pretend when I am 
with him. I am not myself, and if we were to live 
together in constant daily intercourse, I’d have to keep 
on pretending all my life. He wants me to watch his 
face and smile when he smiles and frown when he 
frowns. He can’t realize that I’m an individual just 
as much as he is. 

I have social accomplishments. I dress well, I’m 
spectacular, I would be an ideal hostess in a politician’s 
household — and that’s why he likes me. 

Anyway, I suddenly saw with awful distinctness 
that if I kept on I’d be in a few years where Helen 
Brooks is. She’s a far better model of married life 
for me to contemplate just this moment than you, dear 
Judy. I think that such a spectacle as you and Jervis 
are a menace to society. You look so happy and peace¬ 
ful and companionable that you induce a defenseless 
on-looker to rush off and snap up the first man she 
meets — and he’s always the wrong man. 

Anyway, Gordon and I have quarreled definitely 
and finally. I should rather have ended without a 
quarrel, but considering his temperament,— and mine, 
too, I must confess,— we had to go off in a big smoky 
explosion. He came yesterday afternoon, after I’d 


DEAR ENEMY 


336 

written him not to come, and we went walking over 
Knowltop. For three and a half hours we paced back 
and forth over that windy moor and discussed our¬ 
selves to the bottommost recesses of our beings. No 
one can ever say the break came through misunder¬ 
standing each other! 

It ended by Gordon’s going, never to return. As I 
stood there at the end and watched him drop out of 
sight over the brow of the hill, and realized that I was 
free and alone and my own master, well, Judy, such 
a sense of joyous relief, of freedom, swept over me! 
I can’t tell you; I don’t believe any happily married 
person could ever realize how wonderfully, beautifully 
alone I felt. I wanted to throw my arms out and em¬ 
brace the whole waiting world that belonged suddenly 
to me. Oh, it is such a relief to have it settled! I 
faced the truth the night of the fire when I saw the 
old John Grier go, and realized that a new John Grier 
would be built in its place and that I would n’t be here 
to do it. A horrible jealousy clutched at my heart. I 
could n’t give it up, and during those agonizing mo¬ 
ments while I thought we had lost our doctor, I realized 
( what his life meant, and how much more significant 
, than Gordon’s. And I knew then that I could n’t de¬ 
sert him; I had to go on and carry out all of the plans 
we made together. 

I don’t seem to be telling you anything but a mess 
of words, I am so full of such a mess of crowding emo¬ 
tions; I want to talk and talk and talk myself into co- 


DEAR ENEMY 


337 


herence. But, anyway, I stood alone in the winter 
twilight, and I took a deep breath of clear cold air, and 
I felt beautifully, wonderfully, electrically free; and 
then I ran and leaped and skipped down the hill and 
across the pastures toward our iron confines, and I 
sang to myself. Oh, it was a scandalous proceeding, 
when, according to all precedent, I should have gone 
trailing home with a broken wing. I never gave one 
thought to poor Gordon, who was carrying a broken, 
bruised, betrayed heart to the railroad station. 

As I entered the house I was greeted by the joyous 
clatter of the children trooping to their supper. They 
were suddenly mine, and lately, as my doom became 
more and more imminent, they had seemed fading 
away into little strangers. I seized the three nearest 
and hugged them hard. I have suddenly found such 
new life and exuberance, I feel as though I had been 
released from prison and were free. I feel,— oh, I ’ll 
stop,— I just want you to know the truth. Don’t 
show Jervis this letter, but tell him what’s in it in a 
decently subdued and mournful fashion. 

It’s midnight now, and I’m going to try to go 
to sleep. It’s wonderful not to be going to marry 
some one you don’t want to marry. I’m glad of all 
these children’s needs, I’m glad of Helen Brooks, 
and, yes, of the fire, and everything that has made me 
see clearly. There’s never been a divorce in my fam¬ 
ily, and they would have hated it. 

I know I’m horribly egotistical and selfish; I ought 


33« 


DEAR ENEMY 


to be thinking of poor Gordon’s broken heart. But 
really it would just be a pose if I pretended to be very 
sorrowful. He ’ll find some one else with just as con¬ 
spicuous hair as mine, who will make just as effective 
a hostess, and who won’t be bothered by any of these 
damned modern ideas about public service and woman’s 
mission and all the rest of the tomfoolery the modern 
generation of women is addicted to. (I paraphrase, 
and soften our young man’s heartbroken utterances.) 

Good-by, dear people. How I wish I could stand 
with you on your beach and look across the blue, blue 
sea! I salute the Spanish main. 

Addio! 


Sallxe. 


January 27. 

Dear Dr. MacRae: 

I wonder if this note will be so fortunate as to find 
you awake? Perhaps you are not aware that I have 
called four times to offer thanks and consolation in 
my best bed-side manner? I am touched by the news 
that Mrs. McGurk’s time is entirely occupied in taking 
in flowers and jelly and chicken broth, donated by the 
adoring ladies of the parish to the ungracious hero in 
a plaster cast. I know that you find a cap of home- 
spun more comfortable than a halo, but I really do 
think that you might have regarded me in a different 
light from the hysterical ladies in question. You and 
I used to be friends (intermittently), and though there 
are one or two details in our past intercourse that 
might better be expunged, still I don’t see why we 
should let them upset our entire relationship. Can’t 
we be sensible and expunge them ? 

The fire has brought out such a lot of unexpected 
kindliness and charity, I wish it might bring out a little 
from you. You see, Sandy, I know you well. You 
may pose to the world as being gruff and curt and un¬ 
gracious and scientific and inhuman and SCOTCH, 
but you can’t fool me. My newly trained psychologi¬ 
cal eye has been upon you for ten months, and I have 
applied the Binet test. You are really kind and sym- 
339 



340 


DEAR ENEMY 


pathetic and wise and forgiving and big, so please be 
at home the next time I come to see you, and we will 
perform a surgical operation upon Time and amputate 
five months. 

Do you remember the Sunday afternoon we ran 
away, and what a nice time we had? It is now the 
day after that. 


Sallie McBride. 


p.s. If I condescend to call upon you again, please 
condescend to see me, for I assure you I won’t try 
more than once! Also, I assure you that I won’t drip 
tears on your counterpane or try to kiss your hand, as 
I hear one admiring lady did. 



"The 

IS 3S h lee p 



F c^h't be kn iv 






The John Grier Home, 


Thursday. 

Dear Enemy: 

You see, I’m feeling very friendly toward you this 
moment. When I call you “ MacRae ” I don’t like 
you, and when I call you “ Enemy ” I do. 

Sadie Kate delivered your note (as an after¬ 
thought). And it’s a very creditable production for 
a left-handed man; I thought at first glance it was from 
Punch. 

You may expect me to-morrow at four, and mind 
you ’re awake! I’m glad that you think we ’re 
friends. Really, I feel that I’ve got back something 
quite precious which I had carelessly mislaid. 

S. McB. 


p.S Java caught cold the night of the fire and he has 
the toothache. He sits and holds his cheek like a poor 
little kiddie. 


34i 


Thursday, January 29. 


Dear Judy: 

Those must have been ten terribly incoherent pages 
I dashed off to you last week. Did you respect my 
command to destroy that letter ? I should not care to 
have it appear in my collected correspondence. I 
know that my state of mind is disgraceful, shocking, 
scandalous, but one really can’t help the way one feels. 
It is usually considered a pleasant sensation to be en¬ 
gaged, but, oh, it is nothing compared with the wonder¬ 
ful untrammeled, joyous, free sensation of being un¬ 
engaged ! I have had a terribly unstable feeling these 
last few months, and now at last I am settled. No one 
ever looked forward to spinsterhood more thankfully 
than I. 

Our fire, I have come to believe, was providential. 
It was sent from heaven to clear the way for a new 
John Grier. We are already deep in plans for cot¬ 
tages. I favor gray stucco, Betsy leans to brick, and 
Percy, half-timber. I don’t know what our poor doc¬ 
tor would prefer; olive green with a mansard roof ap¬ 
pears to be his taste. 

With ten different kitchens to practise in, won’t our 
children learn how to cook! I am already looking 
about for ten loving house mothers to put in charge. 

342 


DEAR ENEMY 


343 


I think, in fact, I 41 search for eleven, in order to have 
one for Sandy. He’s as pathetically in need of a little 
mothering as any of the chicks. It must be pretty dis- 
spiriting to come home every night to the ministrations 
of Mrs. McGur-rk. 

How I do not like that woman! She has with com¬ 
placent firmness told me four different times that the 
dochther was ashleep and not wantin’ to be disturbed. 
I have n’t set eyes on him yet, and I have just about 
finished being polite. However, I waive judgment 
until to-morrow at four, when I am to pay a short, un¬ 
exciting call of half an hour. He made the appoint¬ 
ment himself, and if she tells me again that he is 
ashleep, I shall give her a gentle push and tip her over 
(she’s very fat and unstable) and, planting a foot 
firmly on her stomach, pursue my way tranquilly in 
and up. Luellen, formerly chauffeur, chambermaid, 
and gardener, is now also trained nurse. I am eager 
to see how he looks in a white cap and apron. 

The mail has just come, with a letter from Mrs. 
Bretland, telling how happy they are to have the chil¬ 
dren. She inclosed their first photograph — all 
packed in a governess cart, with Clifford proudly hold- 
i. ing the reins, and a groom at the pony’s head. How 
is that for three late inmates of the John Grier Home? 
It’s all very inspiring when I think of their futures, 
but a trifle sad when I remember their poor father, and 
how he worked himself to death for those three chicks 
who are going to forget him. The Bretlands will do 


344 


DEAR ENEMY 


their best to accomplish that. They are jealous of any 
outside influence and want to make the babies wholly 
theirs. After all, I think the natural way is best — 
for each family to produce its own children, and keep 
them. 

Friday. 

I saw the doctor to-day. He ’s a pathetic sight, con¬ 
sisting mostly of bandages. Somehow or other we got 
our misunderstandings all made up. Is n’t it dreadful 
the way two human beings, both endowed with fair 
powers of speech, can manage to convey nothing of 
their psychological processes to each other ? I have n’t 
understood his mental attitude from the first, and he 
even yet does n’t understand mine. This grim ret¬ 
icence that we Northern people struggle so hard to 
maintain! I don’t know after all but that the excit¬ 
able Southern safety-valve method is the best. 

But, Judy, such a dreadful thing — do you remem¬ 
ber last year when he visited that psychopathic institu¬ 
tion, and stayed ten days, and I made such a silly fuss 
about it? Oh, my dear, the impossible things I do! 
He went to attend his wife’s funeral. She died there 
in the institution. Mrs. McGurk knew it all the time, 
and might have added it to the rest of her news, but 
she did n’t. 

He told me all about her, very sweetly. The poor 
man for years and years has undergone a terrible 
strain, and I fancy her death is a blessed relief. He 


DEAR ENEMY 


345 


confesses that he knew at the time of his marriage that 
he ought not to marry her, he knew all about her nerv¬ 
ous instability; but he thought, being a doctor, that he 
could overcome it, and she was beautiful! He gave 
up his city practice and came to the country on her 
account. And then after the little girl’s birth she went 
all to pieces, and he had to “ put her away,” to use Mrs. 
McGurk’s phrase. The child is six now, a sweet, 
lovely little thing to look at, but, I judge from what he 
said, quite abnormal. He has a trained nurse with her 
always. Just think of all that tragedy looming over 
our poor patient good doctor, for he is patient, despite 
being the most impatient man that ever lived! 

Thank Jervis for his letter. He’s a dear man, and 
I’m glad to see him getting his deserts. What fun 
we are going to have when you get back to Shady well, 
and we lay our plans for a new John Grier! I feel as 
though I had spent this past year learning, and am 
now just ready to begin. We ’ll turn this into the 
nicest orphan-asylum that ever lived. I’m so absurdly 
happy at the prospect that I start in the morning with a 
spring, and go about my various businesses singing 
inside. 

The John Grier Home sends its blessing to the two 
best friends it ever had! 


Addio! 


Sallie. 


The John Grier Home, 
Saturday at half-past six in the morning! 
My dearest Enemy: 

“ Some day soon something nice is going to happen.” 

Were n’t you surprised when you woke up this 
morning and remembered the truth? I was! I 
could n’t think for about two minutes what made me so 
happy. 

It’s not light yet, but I’m wide awake and excited 
and having to write to you. I shall despatch this note 
by the first to-be-trusted little orphan who appears, and 
it will go up on your breakfast tray along with your 
oatmeal. 



346 



DEAR ENEMY 


347 


I shall follow very promptly at four o’clock this 
afternoon. Do you think Mrs. McGurk will ever 
countenance the scandal if I stay two hours, and no 
orphan for a chaperon? 

It was in all good faith, Sandy, that I promised not 
to kiss your hand or drip tears on the counterpane, 
but I’m afraid I did both — or worse! Positively, I 
did n’t suspect how much I cared for you till I crossed 
the threshold and saw you propped up against the pil¬ 
lows, all covered with bandages, and your hair singed 
off. You are a sight! If I love you now, when fully 
one third of you is plaster of Paris and surgical dress¬ 
ing, you can imagine how I’m going to love you when 
it’s all you! 

But my dear, dear Robin, what a foolish man you 
are! How should I ever have dreamed all those 
months that you were caring for me when you acted so 
abominably SCOTCH? With most men, behavior 
like yours would not be considered a mark of affection. 
I wish you had just given me a glimmering of an idea 
of the truth, and maybe you would have saved us both 
a few heartaches. 

But we must n’t be looking back; we must look for¬ 
ward and be grateful. The two happiest things in life 
are going to be ours, a friendly marriage and work that 
we love. 

Yesterday, after leaving you, I walked back to the 
asylum sort of dazed. I wanted to get by myself and 
think, but instead of being by myself, I had to have 



34& 


DEAR ENEMY 


Betsy and Percy and Mrs. Livermore for dinner (al¬ 
ready invited) and then go down and talk to the chil¬ 
dren. Friday night — social evening. They had a 
lot of new records for the victrola, given by Mrs. Liv¬ 
ermore, and I had to sit politely and listen to them. 
And, my dear — you’ll think this funny — the last 
thing they played was “ John Anderson, my joe John,” 
and suddenly I found myself crying! I had to snatch 
up the nearest orphan and hug her hard, with my head 
buried in her shoulder, to keep them all from seeing. 

John Anderson, my joe John, 

We clamb the hill thegither, 

And monie a canty day, John, 

We’ve had wi\ane anither; 

Now we maun totter down, John, 

But hand in hand we ’ll go, 

And sleep thegither at the foot, 

John Anderson, my joe. 

I wonder, when we are old and bent and tottery, can 
you and I look back, with no regrets, on monie a canty 
day we’ve had wi’ ane anither ? It’s nice to look for¬ 
ward to, isn’t it — a life of work and play and little 
daily adventures side by side with somebody you love ? 
I’m not afraid of the future any more. I don’t mind 
growing old with you, Sandy. “ Time is but the 
stream I go a-fishing in.” 

The reason I’ve grown to love these orphans is be¬ 
cause they need me so, and that’s the reason — at 
least one of the reasons — I’ve grown to love you. 



DEAR ENEMY 


349 


You ’re a pathetic figure of a man, my dear, and since 
you won’t make yourself comfortable, you must be 
made comfortable. 

We ’ll build a house on the hillside just beyond the 
asylum — how does a yellow Italian villa strike you, 
or preferably a pink one? Anyway, it won’t be green. 
And it won’t have a mansard roof. And we ’ll have 
a big cheerful living-room, all fireplace and windows 
and view, and no McGURK. Poor old thing! won’t 
she be in a temper and cook you a dreadful dinner when 
she hears the news! But we won’t tell her for a long, 
long time — or anybody else. It’s too scandalous a 
proceeding right on top of my own broken engagement. 
I wrote to Judy last night, and with unprecedented self- 
control I never let fall so much as a hint. I’m grow¬ 
ing Scotch mysel’! 

Perhaps I did n’t tell you the exact truth, Sandy, 
when I said I had n’t known how much I cared. I 
think it came to me the night the John Grier burned. 
When you were up under that blazing roof, and for 
the half hour that followed, when we didn’t know 
whether or not you would live, I can’t tell you what 
agonies I went through. It seemed to me, if you did 
go, that I would never get over it all my life; that 
somehow to have let the best friend I ever had pass 
away with a dreadful chasm of misunderstanding be¬ 
tween us — well — I could n’t wait for the moment 
when I should be allowed to see you and talk out all 
that I have been shutting inside me for five months. 


350 


DEAR ENEMY 


And then — you know that you gave strict orders to 
keep me out; and it hurt me dreadfully. How should 
I suspect that you really wanted to see me more than 
any of the others, and that it was just that terrible 
Scotch moral sense that was holding you back? You 
are a very good actor, Sandy. But, my dear, if ever 
in our lives again we have the tiniest little cloud of a 
misunderstanding, let’s promise not to shut it up in¬ 
side ourselves, but to talk. 

Last night, after they all got off,— early, I r 
pleased to say, since the chicks no longer live 
home,— I came up-stairs and finished my letter to 
Judy, and then I looked at the telephone and struggled 
with temptation. I wanted to call up 505 and say 
good night to you. But I did n’t dare. I’m still 
quite respectably bashful! So, as the next best thing 
to talking with you, I got out Burns and read him for 
an hour. I dropped asleep with all those Scotch love- 
songs running in my head, and here I am at daybreak 
writing them to you. 

Good-by, Robin lad, I lo’e you week 

Sallie. 





THE END 













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